How to choose a food storage warehouse
Are you looking for a 3PL to store, pick, pack and dispatch your food or drink products? Here are 6 things to consider before signing on the dotted line.
If you run an eCommerce business specialising in food, you'll know that it presents challenges that other sectors don't have to deal with.
First of all, it's a heavily regulated industry. In the UK, there are scores of red tape determining how food is handled, stored and shipped. While this can be difficult to get your head around at first, it's imperative to keep your customers safe and happy.
It's also an industry where expiration dates and use-by dates are all important. This is a consideration that simply doesn't apply to many sectors. When your food orders are being fulfilled, you have to be sure they'll be in-date by the time they arrive.
So if you're looking for a 3PL to manage your order fulfilment, you need to know that their warehouse is "food-grade". It needs to have measures and equipment in place to ensure safety, cleanliness and compliance.
In this article, we explore what you need to look for in a food warehouse.
Hygiene
This is, of course, the big one. Contamination is a real threat even if you're just making meatballs at home. We all take steps to maintain hygienic environments for food preparation. A warehouse is no exception – but it is an environment with more moving parts than most.
Before you partner up with a food warehouse, make sure there's a demonstrable focus on health, cleanliness and pest control.
It should be demonstrable in two ways. First, the warehouse should carry the official stamps of certification and accreditation. But just as a food hygiene certificate in a fish and chip shop doesn't mean much if you see the server spit in your mushy peas, so you need to see for yourself that this warehouse is up to scratch.
When you visit, look out for safety and sanitation measures and ask plenty of questions. A reputable warehouse will freely disclose its routines regarding pest control, food handling and more. If they mumble an answer or change the subject, take your custom elsewhere.
Types of storage
A food warehouse is a food warehouse, right? Well, yes and no. There are, in fact, three main types of food storage – and different warehouses will provide one or more of them.
First, there's dry storage. This is for canned food, packaged snacks, sauces and other products. It requires a controlled temperature and a controlled climate, with humidifiers and dehumidifiers managing the humidity.
Next, there's refrigerated storage – cold storage for certain products like fruit and vegetables. And finally, there's frozen storage.
You know what you need. Make sure that your 3PL has the service you require.
Certifications
When you first approach a food warehouse, ask them about their certifications. At Stowsafe Fulfilment, for instance, we're certified by the Organic Food Federation. This is a badge of approval that means you can expect clean, secure dry good storage from us – with no contamination.
Location, location, location
Why bother with a 3PL? There are plenty of answers to this question but they all combine to make one compelling reason: convenience.
Your business is on the up. You're too big to be storing your food products at home but not big enough to buy your own warehouse. That's where 3PLs come in – they let you leverage an existing infrastructure rather than sink all your money into your own setup.
But not any warehouse will do. If the point is convenience, you need your goods to be stored at a location with good transport links to urban centres and main roads. A storage unit tucked away in the back end of nowhere isn't the best way to spread your goods around the country.
So, make sure your warehouse is well-located as well as well-maintained.
WMS (warehouse management system)
A good warehouse is more than just its physical infrastructure. It's also about its digital offering.
An industry-grade WMS should be a key consideration when choosing a warehouse. This is important in any sector – but especially in food, where you have to be sure that your food is shipped within its expiration date. Anything less and your customers will drop off like dead flies on a mouldy sandwich.
A reputable 3PL will be able to log "lots" of food goods – for example, grouping together items that have the same expiration date. This means that they can recall batches quickly and smoothly if necessary.
Can your warehouse handle this? If the answer's "no" or "not sure", you should consider looking elsewhere.
Scalability
Very few businesses reach a point where they're done with growth. If you're expanding, you've probably got your eyes on the next prize – so you need a 3PL that can respond to your needs as you grow.
That means working with a food storage warehouse that can scale up without any complications. It should be as easy as upgrading your Netflix subscription. Any faff or delay and you should consider switching to another provider.
Flexibility
Finally, there's flexibility. The fact of the matter is that one-size-fits-all rarely fits anybody. You need a food storage warehouse that can be flexible about storage and shipping – be it kitting, labelling, batch processing or marketing inserts in your parcels.
Conclusion
In some ways, food storage is a more complex proposition than other types of warehousing. The bottom line is that you need to be confident your food is handled and stored correctly, ensuring the safety and satisfaction of your customers.
A good
3PL can make all the difference – so be sure you do your research and ask plenty of questions before you commit to a provider.
At Stowsafe Fulfilment, we provide safe, secure dry goods storage – and we're the proud possessor of an Organic Food Federation certificate. You can expect a flexible, hygiene-first approach to food storage. Interested?
Get in touch for a free, no-obligation consultation.
