ATLANTA – Tosca, a global leader in reusable packaging and pooling, has announced its partnership with NAFCO, one of the largest seafood suppliers based in the northeast. NAFCO is currently shipping large finfish in Tosca’s 6419 crates into over 350 stores located on the East Coast. In January, Tosca’s new, smaller 4319 seafood crate will begin shipping in the NAFCO supply chain as well, transporting other products such as smaller filets of fish.
NAFCO is Tosca’s first seafood supplier partner to go into multiple retail banners, allowing Tosca RPCs to generate a broader impact on the seafood market. Seafood RPCs offer several benefits to the seafood supply chain. They are more sustainable than single-use packaging alternatives such as foam and corrugated. Tosca’s foldable RPCs also reduce the need for storage trailers of foam at facilities. Lastly, RPCs cost less than EPS foam. On average, the switch to RPCs generates an estimated 40-50% reduction in packaging costs, allowing partners to save up to a dollar a box.
Jeff Pearlman, Vice President at NAFCO, is especially excited about the sustainability benefits RPCs bring to the NAFCO supply chain. “Sustainability is important to our business and we are always looking for ways to make our supply chain more sustainable. RPCs offer the opportunity for us to reduce the use of harmful EPS foam, while still preserving our ability to ship the highest quality products to our retail partners.”
During the trial process at the beginning of their relationship with Tosca, NAFCO wanted to make sure that the product held temperature throughout the supply chain. Tosca tested this by inserting temperature devices into different RPCs in various segments of the supply chain, tracking the internal temperature of RPCs carrying seafood as they traveled from the DC to the store. Throughout each trip, the inside of the RPCs and the seafood they carried maintained an average temperature of 34.86 degrees.
Jon Kalin, Chief Commercial Officer at Tosca, is excited about the NAFCO partnership. “NAFCO works really hard to deliver the best quality products they can to their partners,” he said. “RPCs truly offer them a win-win-win solution by offering their supply chain more sustainability, more efficiency, and more savings without risking product quality in any way.”
About Tosca
Tosca (www.toscaltd.com) is a global leader in reusable packaging solutions and pooling for food supply chains. Our unique end-to-end pooling capabilities offer growers, suppliers, and retailers a smarter and more sustainable way to move their products from source to shelf. With reusable containers and pallets that preserve product quality and reduce shrink and labor cost, we help these customers build higher performing supply chains.
Tosca’s recent acquisition of Polymer Logistics and Contraload now creates one stronger partner with expanded global reach and a more robust product portfolio of reusable assets including crates, pallets, bulk containers, dollies and more, capable of serving both upstream and downstream markets.