Cost to serve news

Alan Hayes considers how supply chains operate on a fine balance between efficiency and performance. Many food and grocery retailers, and high street retailers have reported increased sales in the important Christmas trading window. However, the Financial Times wrote earlier this month that many have also been “...coughing and muttering something about lower margins.” One commentator h...

The Coca-Cola Company has refranchised its bottling operations in China, with COFCO and Swire to acquire The Coca-Cola Company's Bottling Investments Group China (BIG). Focusing on building brands Under the agreement, all Coca-Cola Company-owned bottlers, including the Coca-Cola Company's Bottling Investments Group, will be refranchised into two partners: COFCO (China National Cereals, Oils a...

The Co-op has extended a contract with XPO logistics. Servicing over 1000 stores XPO Logistics will continue to manage the Co-op’s food transport operations from its facilities in Andover and Avonmouth to Co-op’s 1000 plus stores in the South of England and Wales. XPO’s regional planning centre will also service both distribution centres. 100 million cases Under the agreement, XPO Logist...

Müller Milk & Ingredients has announced plans to invest £60m to upgrade capabilities and operational efficiencies. Improving operations Müller’s investment will be spent on upgrading its processing facilities at Severnside and Foston, with enhancements being made to its Droitwich, Manchester and Bridgwater dairies. As part of ongoing plans to create a modern, efficient fresh milk and ingredi...

X5 Retail Group has launched GoCargo, a solution for booking cargo transportation services online. 10,000 orders a day The system matches cargo and transport by a number of criteria, including volume, weight, temperature conditions, shipping dates, and loading and parking points. GoCargo is able to process up to 10,000 orders a day, and is fully integrated with X5’s ERP infrastructure, makin...

Amazon has announced plans to open its twelfth fulfilment centre in the UK in 2017. Third new fulfillment centre in a year Daventry is the third new Amazon fulfilment centre set to open in the UK next year, alongside Doncaster and Tilbury. It aims to support Amazon's 150 million products and the 40% growth in Amazon Marketplace over the past year. The recruitment of 300 new staff will start t...

Tesco's UK and International divisions grow both volume and value sales across H1 2016. LFL sales and volume growth delivered across the entire Group Tesco's core UK business has delivered LFL volume and value growth of 2.1% and 0.6% respectively. Value growth hit 0.9% in the second quarter of the reporting period; indicating an upwards trajectory. The International business has grown volume ...

Sainsbury's has appointed Simon Roberts as retail and operations director. He will report to CEO Mike Coupe and be a member of the operating board, and is expected to join Sainsbury's by next July. Roberts will replace Roger Burnley who has left Sainsbury's to take up the role of deputy chief executive and COO of Asda this month. Leadership experience from Boots and M&S Roberts joins with ext...

Ahold Delhaize has doubled the floor order processing capacity of one of its NDCs in The Netherlands. Investing in fresh The newly formed Ahold Delhaize has renovated its Ah.nl online national distribution centre (NDC), the Home Shop Center in De Meern, Utrecht. The renovation, which will soon enable the retailer to double the number of orders processed there, included a new production hall. ...

With growth hard to come by, untangling your supply chain cost to serve may be more important than ever. Chris Irish explores how decisions made at one end of a supply chain can have a profound impact at the other and untangling this web may help you uncover hidden costs to remove and increase your business’s profitability. OK, I should probably start by clarifying something: I’m not about to...