Fresh King Bolsters Customer Service with CHEP
Fresh King, a grower and shipper of tropical and exotic fruits and vegetables, will expand shipments on CHEP pallets in the near future. Homestead, Fla.-based Fresh King continues to experience customer service improvements from the use of the CHEP pallet pooling system. The grower now uses CHEP pallets to transport avocados, coconuts, miniature vegetables, limes, lychees, mangos, yellow tomatoes, carambola, sugar-snap peas, snow peas and French green beans from its warehouse just south of Miami to supermarkets, warehouse clubs and other wholesale distributors in the Northeast, in Texas and on the Pacific Coast.
Fresh King has been increasing its use of the CHEP pallet-pooling program for more than a decade. Before joining the CHEP pool, Fresh King used limited-use pallets and found them lacking from a performance standpoint.
Now the company is seeing continued improvements in productivity both at its own distribution center and at those of its customers. “With CHEP, we get a dependable pallet that our customers prefer,” said warehouse manager Angel Jaimes. “There are rarely any rejections of our loads at the customer’s receiving docks, and that keeps our costs down.”
Jaimes said sustainability had grown in importance at Fresh King during the past year, and the CHEP program had positive synergies with other packaging projects such as the use of a new box made from 100 percent recycled paper that the grower was now using for most commodities.
“Fresh King is proof that you don’t need to be a large company to experience the benefits of the CHEP program,” noted Tim Smith, VP, new business development at Orlando, Fla.-based CHEP USA. “It is a great example of how mid-sized companies can improve customer service and reliability while reducing capital expenditures.”
Fresh King has been increasing its use of the CHEP pallet-pooling program for more than a decade. Before joining the CHEP pool, Fresh King used limited-use pallets and found them lacking from a performance standpoint.
Now the company is seeing continued improvements in productivity both at its own distribution center and at those of its customers. “With CHEP, we get a dependable pallet that our customers prefer,” said warehouse manager Angel Jaimes. “There are rarely any rejections of our loads at the customer’s receiving docks, and that keeps our costs down.”
Jaimes said sustainability had grown in importance at Fresh King during the past year, and the CHEP program had positive synergies with other packaging projects such as the use of a new box made from 100 percent recycled paper that the grower was now using for most commodities.
“Fresh King is proof that you don’t need to be a large company to experience the benefits of the CHEP program,” noted Tim Smith, VP, new business development at Orlando, Fla.-based CHEP USA. “It is a great example of how mid-sized companies can improve customer service and reliability while reducing capital expenditures.”