Cold Supply Chain, Food Grade, Food Safety, Freight, LTL, Warehousing
Every week it seems as though there’s a new brewery popping up somewhere in town. However, many craft brewers do not have an adequate keg inventory to expand to multi-state distribution and to meet the new market demand. As a result, they may need to purchase more kegs, bottles, growlers, and cans in order to have sufficient on-hand inventory. Let us free up your time so you can focus on what’s essential, brewing fantastic beer.
Finding the right logistics partner requires careful research. Our team suggests that brewers evaluate potential 3PL’s by looking at a few key areas:
Food-Grade Facilities: Let’s start with the basics. You’ll want a provider with facilities that are food-grade SQF certified and have an A.I.B. “superior” sanitation rating.
One-Stop Shop: Chances are, you need more than warehousing for your beer. Fulfillment, transportation, packaging, etc. If your 3PL can deliver single-source solutions, they’ll help streamline your supply chain, control costs, and improve service to your customers.
Transportation Management: Can your 3PL provide real-time visibility and reporting? While giving you cost-effective options for delivering products when and where needed?
Getting your beer to the consumer.
Third party logistics companies, when you work with them for alcohol shipments, will need to be aware of different regulations. For instance, trucks transporting alcohol cannot veer off their course by more than seven miles from a federal highway during the shipment. If the driver does—say, by eating lunch on a break off the highway—the DOT may have the authority to impound that shipment. Alcohol is regulated by the individual states and not the federal government, so what would be considered following the law in Ohio doesn’t necessarily fly in Nebraska, Kentucky, Virginia, etc. That’s where it gets tricky. So it’s helpful to find a logistics company that knows the ins and outs of liquor shipping so that you can feel confident about their work.
Less-than-truckload shipments of alcohol are frequent, meaning if you have one pallet or 12, you can get your beer moving to its destination on a truck with other shipments. Taylor knows you just want people to enjoy your tasty beer, so we take care of the tricky parts for you. We have thousands of carriers in our network throughout the nation that meet the specific requirements set up by the states your beer needs to travel through for consistent alcohol shipments. Our team will set everything up, all you have to do is let us know about your shipment, and we’ll let you know when it arrives!
Why Taylor?
2020 marks the 170th year in business for Taylor, and for the past couple of decades, our focus has been all things food and beverage from warehousing to transportation our team knows a thing or two about food grade best practices.
Taylor’s fleet is supported by specialized carrier partners to provide nationwide freight transportation
Warehouse Management System carefully monitors “sell by” dates to ensure product quality and freshness
Taylor’s value-added services such as label application, primary and secondary packaging, and store displays and promotional builds make us your one-stop shop
TMS allows for complete visibility from the moment your products leave to their final destination
