Reusable temperature-sensitive packaging from Candor’s new Food Chain Division helps shippers transform frozen and refrigerated shipping, cutting costs, improving efficiency, product quality and creating a safer environment.
Plano, Texas-based Candor Expedite, a transportation leader known for its ability to exceed expectations with time-sensitive shipments, recently announced the launch of an innovation-driven cold chain division. Candor Food Chain combines the company’s national shipping services with a unique technology – a fully reusable cold chain packaging solution that allows pallet and box-sized frozen and refrigerated shipments to go by regular transport and stay frozen or refrigerated for up to nine days.
Candor Expedite’s Food Chain is the first and exclusive U.S. company to introduce this technology through a partnership with Cool Chain, a European technology provider that has worked successfully with pharmaceutical companies for over a decade.
“I’ve witnessed the challenges shippers face in the frozen and refrigerated market. The excessive expenditure, along with issues like damaged products and delayed deliveries, is alarming,” said Nicole Glenn, founder and CEO of Candor Expedite. “We’re excited to bring this new, unique technology to the food industry – reducing costs, eliminating claims, and offering real-time temperature and location monitoring,” she added.
By consolidating deliveries of perishable and dry goods in one truck that supports three different temperatures —frozen refrigerated and ambient — food manufacturers, distributors and retailers can eliminate the costs of multiple deliveries across the United States.
Glenn, who has been in the industry for 24 years, launched Candor Expedite in 2017. The company’s premise was to provide a focus on truth and visibility that she found lacking in the industry. “That’s where the name came from,” she said.
An early thrust of the company was rightsizing road equipment and shipment, noting that it was all too common to see a refrigerated trailer with just a few skids or even just a few boxes. The initial strategy of Candor Expedite was centered around hotshot ground services, tailoring equipment to shipment sizes to offer beyond-standard expedited shipping solutions. “We were trying to bring something to the marketplace beyond just your everyday ‘holy cow hair on fire’ expedited shipping,” she quipped.
“We started organically building out our company to help with white glove services, first and final mile services, air freight, and truckload,” Glenn explained. However, the pandemic highlighted a significant need for refrigerated goods solutions, leading Glenn to develop Candor Food Chain.
Candor Food Chain Features
- Food Chain’s technology sets a new bar for temperature-controlled and accountable shipping. Temperatures range from 10 to 70 degrees.
- Temperature readings & GPS tracking with live feeds on the products’ temperature and location.
- No dry ice – specific size boxes or pallets can hold temperature for 4 days on the small boxes – to 9 days for a pallet.
- In addition to reducing carbon and refrigerant emissions, the boxes are reusable and contain no harmful toxins. They do not require extra insulation, cardboard, which often gets discarded, or dry ice, which can emit a dangerous carbon dioxide gas as it melts.
- All boxes/pallets are 100% reusable: From start to finish, Candor Food Chain covers all bases for the shipper/consignee – from pick-up to delivery, followed by stringent cleaning and conditioning.
- Human/Tech Ratio: A logistics expert is always on hand to monitor any changes in the temperature and respond accordingly.
- With Food Chain’s packaging, shippers can use any mode of transportation, including a local distribution center to stores, regional, and OTR capabilities.
“Our customers feel like heroes because they now have a way to cut out a large amount of wasted money, energy, and packaging while feeling good about meeting environmental goals,” said Tyler Wiard, Director of Business Development of Candor Expedite and Food Chain. “We’re a proud, woman-owned business which shippers appreciate as they strive to meet Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) goals,” he added.
Reverse Logistics and Rollout
Candor Food Chain has already conducted 24 test shipments with one of the largest fast-food chains, receiving positive feedback. Glenn shared, “Every single shipment that they are going to be shipping of their sample sizes will be with Candor Food Chain.” Another major national company is interested in scaling this technology for all their try-temp deliveries.
Candor Food Chain’s rollout plan is ambitious. Starting with a regional market in Texas, the company plans to expand by the end of 2024 to include Charlotte, Orlando, Seattle, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Chicago, and several East Coast locations.
An integral part of Candor Food Chain’s operation is its reverse logistics process. Delivery drivers not only deliver the products but also remove the empty packaging for return to Candor’s facilities for cleaning and conditioning. Glenn elaborated on the process: “We’re going to utilize our final mile resources again, bring that into the delivery. The driver is going to unload all of that product and he or she is going to take that empty pallet back and bring it to that facility where we will condition it again, get it clean, and get it ready for the next shipment.”
For more information and a demo visit www.candorexp.com/foodchain.
About Candor Expedite
Candor Expedite is a transportation leader known for making its customers heroes by delivering creative, fast, effective, and sustainable solutions for time-sensitive and white glove shipments. Founded in 2017 by industry veteran Nicole Glenn, Candor Expedite is a proud, certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBENC), privately-held and operated with headquarters in Plano, Texas, and offices in Joliet, Illinois and Kansas City, Kansas. Visit Candor at www.candorexp.com.
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Rick LeBlanc, EMBA, is the founder and editor of Reusable Packaging News (subscribe to the free newsletter) and editor of Western Pallet Magazine. A supply chain journalist with more than 30 years of experience, he specializes in pallets, reusable packaging, material handling and related operations. Rick is co-author of Pallets: A North American Perspective and Pallets & Progress: A Collected History of Pallets and Palletized Handling 1922–1945. He is also an advisory board member of the Virginia Tech Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design. Read Rick’s full bio.
