Belgium's Chocolate Source is the exclusive importer of Nirvana Belgian Chocolates: a premium all-natural chocolate line including gourmet truffles, seasonal chocolate assortments in gift boxes, and artisanal gourmet specialties such as fruit jellies (pates de fruits) and all-natural marzipan, nougat and other specialties.
Challenges
- Diverse set of customers serviced through multiple sales channels and order streams (e.g. B2C, brick and mortar retailers, on-line retailers, and business promotions)
- Integration and interfacing to numerous e-commerce sites that push order activity
- Temperature control warehouse environment
- Value-added gift wrapping with custom-printed cards
- Significant seasonal peaks at Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, and Christmas
- Expiration date tracking and management
- Product conversion of cased chocolates
- Pick & pack fulfillment
- Consolidated warehouse configured to service the entire U.S. customer base
Solutions
Barrett has made improvements to both systemic and operational processes. Corrective actions address any issue that might lead to a service failure. Barrett made improvements to the system to raise awareness of imminent expiration dates and enhanced system interfaces with the 7 different on-line retailers. Finally, Barrett developed detailed execution plans to prepare for seasonal volume spikes.
Results
“The Barrett team does a great job of being flexible and responsive to all of our logistics needs. We operate in a dynamic manufacturing environment, and continually challenge Barrett with last minute changes to our just in time world, both in supporting our package operation and managing outbound distribution. Our multi-year relationship started small and each year we do more with Barrett, as they have become a reliable and trusted asset in helping us manage the tremendous growth we experience annually.”
