Food supply chain expert Fowler Welch has won additional business from long-standing customer Worldwide Fruit, doubling the volume of product stored and distributed via its national network. 

The additional growth has been realised in two key areas. Firstly, an increase in services involved in serving one of their key accounts, distributing predominantly apples and pears from both the Spalding and Teynham depots, as well as Worldwide Fruit’s Kent pack houses. The additional quantity of pallets to be stored and distributed will provide an uplift of approximately 50% on 2017 volumes.

Further growth within Worldwide Fruit avocado and stone fruit business operating across a number of key high street retailers, saw the Lincolnshire based business require additional services.

Worldwide Fruit operations director, Neal Collishaw said: “Having worked with Fowler Welch for many years, we are well aware of the first class service they offer day-to-day, as well as going above and beyond to find specific solutions that work for our business. So as our volume grew, it was a tried, tested and trusted friend of our business we turned to.

Our initial requirement is to store around 800 pallets weekly, and at a time when traceability is more important than ever to the success of a supply chain, the reporting and communication that Fowler Welch offers provides our business with a confident, compliant and professional traceability service. We have daily detailed communications with both operating locations to ensure a constant, smooth operation with our pack houses.

Worldwide Fruit has been a long-term Fowler Welch customer, using a number of various transport solutions through Spalding and Kent, with local transport movements between Worldwide Fruit and local pack houses being added to the service over time.

David Cooke, key account manager at Fowler Welch commented: “Throughout our 20 year relationship with Worldwide Fruit, we have invested time in understanding the business and developed a service that has been flexible to grow and develop alongside the business’s needs. 

“When Worldwide Fruit started looking to increase their volumes, they required a storage solution away from their current Spalding warehouse as well as a potential requirement for a small pack house and through our extensive network, we were in a position to offer both, creating a one-stop-shop to service the additional throughput. Due to our existing knowledge of the business’s requirements, we were able to consolidate the additional transport volumes onto our current orders, creating a solution that worked for both parties.”

Once the additional service is fully up and running, the expectation is for Fowler Welch to hold storage for Worldwide Fruit in the region of 1,000 pallets in season at Spalding, with annual projected transport volumes of 56,000 pallets.