Partner Article

Gerber logistics firm doubles business in 12 months

A logistics firm owned by drinks giant, Gerber Juice, has doubled its volumes in the last year, through its warehouses in Bridgwater, Somerset.

Gerber Juice, which owns numerous brands including Sun Pride, Del Monte and Sunny Delight, celebrated its third party business’s success since it increase its number of pallets to 10,000 a week.

After launching its third party logistics business in 2011, the beverages firm now handles between 3.5m and 4m cases annually for other companies, including Westaways Sausages and Roddas clotted cream.

One particular firm, The Potted Fish Company, used Gerber to get its business off the ground using the company’s resources to bring products to market.

Gerber said The Potted Fish Company had come “from the kitchen table to the supermarket shelf” within two years, after its 22-year old founder, Jonathan Bailey, partnered with the firm.

Now with his Devonshire-sourced seafood products in large supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s, Mr Bailey has won numerous awards, including the Outstanding Small Business award from the IGD Food Industry Awards last year.

He commented: “Leveraging a bigger, established company like Gerber’s supply chain expertise has help take my business from the kitchen table to a national stage. The Potted Fish Company is now swimming upstream.”

Gerber’s general manager for logistics, Alan Armstead, added: “We are delighted to have grown the 3PL business so quickly and are also very proud that all our clients are pleased with both the cost and the service we deliver.

“The next stage is to double the business in the next two years and look to add chilled storage capacity to meet the demand.

“More and more customers are looking for consolidation and partnering as a means to save money and reduce their carbon footprint.

“Our reputation in juice production and distribution speaks for itself and we are pleased to be able to harness this expertise for clients from other areas in the food and drink industry.”

The company’s product values have doubled year-on-year, and Gerber stores now picks up and distributes a total of 260 third party lines.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .