DispatchTrack Launches DispatchTrack for Food Distribution

Over the past decade-plus, DispatchTrack has made its name across multiple industries by solving difficult problems in last mile logistics. We were pioneers in raising the global standard for delivery experience, and we’ve worked hard to offer best-in-class route optimization to ensure that businesses across the board can reduce miles driven, make life easier for your teams, and deliver on-time, every time. 

One of the hard last mile logistics problems that has often gone overlooked by technology providers is the unique use case that pertains to food distribution. It’s a $28 billion dollar industry that will continue to grow double digits. That’s why, today, we’re doubling down on our commitment to tackling the entire food distribution last mile by launching DispatchTrack for Food Distribution. 

DispatchTrack for Food Distribution provides SaaS-based last mile logistics software, helping food distributors boost customer satisfaction and drive profitability by powering faster, smarter, and more flexible delivery planning and execution. It’s a product that’s designed with the needs of food distributors in mind, and we’re excited to work with our partners in the food distribution industry to leverage technology to meet the last mile challenges that are unique to their vertical.

Why Are We Launching DispatchTrack for Food Distribution?

In short, last mile technology for the food distribution sector has been overdue for evolution. There have been few improvements to the industry's routing options in the last decade, even as dynamic route optimization has significantly impacted B2C businesses (like furniture and appliance retailers). Where businesses that mostly run dynamic routes have had huge efficiency gains thanks to modern route optimization software, businesses that run static routes (e.g. food distributors) have been stuck with cumbersome, difficult-to-use tools that make reroutes too difficult to be practical more than a few times a year.

At the same time, distributors haven’t had access to a solution that handles the entire last mile logistics journey from end to end. They might have separate solutions for territory planning, route planning, route execution, delivery tracking, and customer communication—to say nothing of the multiple disconnected solutions leveraged by sales, warehouse, and other teams who need visibility and coordination with delivery operations. 

The result has historically been silos between processes that ought to be closely connected. Not only that, but slow, inefficient, and inflexible processes that make it hard for distributors to service their customers in a way that’s cost-efficient. 

Our goal is to buck that trend by offering a connected last mile mile platform that enables you to plan and execute last mile logistics processes in a smarter and more efficient way—all while ensuring that your customers are served the right way.

What Is It?

When we say that DispatchTrack for Food Distribution offers a connected last mile platform that covers the entire journey, what exactly do we mean? 

Simply put, we support distributors from end to end–order creation, to delivery to customers, to backhauls and reporting—all within a single pane of glass. Our platform offers:

• Optimized shuttle routing
• AI-powered strategic planning 
• Hybrid static-dynamic daily route optimization
• Automated dispatching via a driver mobile app
• Customer communications before, during, and after the delivery
• Real-time delivery visibility
• Electronic proof of delivery capture via pictures, signatures, and notes
• A mobile app for salesperson visibility
• Supports for backhauls/returns/pickups
• Robust reporting and integration with the rest of your technology ecosystem (ERP, WMS, etc.)

This is more than just the sum of its parts. Each of these functions on their own represents a valuable part of the last mile delivery process—but taken together you have something much more powerful: a streamlined platform that covers the entire process from end-to-end. 

The result is that rather than switching between solutions that might not play nicely together in order to generate and execute last mile plans, you can do it all without switching screens and without constantly trying to move plans into and out of different software platforms. Your whole last mile planning and execution process happens in one place, with total visibility and connectivity throughout the process. 

Who Is It For?

One of the other challenges that we’ve seen food distributors grappling with is the disconnect that can arise between different teams who all impact the fulfillment process. Sales, delivery, merchandising, and other processes need to be tightly coordinated in order to provide exceptional service to customers—but when those functions lack mutual visibility, that can be hard to achieve. 

That’s why DispatchTrack for food is built to support multiple key roles and teams operating within food distribution businesses. Obviously, since route optimization and planning is such a huge part of the platform, we’ve created the product food distributors’ unique routing needs in mind (dealing with customer time window preferences, generating multi-day routes, balancing fixed stops with off-day orders and late additions). But we offer users across multiple teams and roles numerous ways to make their jobs—and lives—easier. 

• Route engineers: Can generate routes in less than half the time and can perform reroutes as needed without grappling complex and arcane systems. 
• Dispatchers: Can easily turn base plans into daily route plans, which are then automatically dispatched to drivers via their mobile devices. 
• Warehouse personnel: Can pick the right items for which shuttle routes in order to ensure optimal distribution planning, and can scan items easily via the mobile app. 
• Drivers: Get turn-by-turn directions, digital manifests, and the ability to capture photos, signatures, and notes for proof of delivery.
• Sales personnel: Get their own mobile app that enables them to track deliveries pertaining to their accounts in real time and communicate with other team members from out in the field.
• Merchandisers: Also get their own mobile app for tracking deliveries and staying connected.
• Back-office staff (e.g. accounting): Can log into the DispatchTrack portal directly to track deliveries, see delivery plans, and check on the results of past deliveries. 

Again, this adds up to more than the sum of its parts. By empowering a host of different personnel across functions, DispatchTrack for Food Distributors works as a single source of truth for the last mile.  

How Does DispatchTrack Provide Value for Food Distributors? 

DispatchTrack for food is designed to drive profitability for food distributors, and we do that by working to fill a gap in the technology marketplace around last mile logistics. We offer a solution that’s:

• Industry focused: Designed with the needs of the foodservice industry in mind 
• Fast to value:  Easy to implement, intuitive to use, and accelerated time to market
• Profit optimized:  Economic considerations and insights for every delivery decision
• Always innovative: Built to evolve over time with vertical focused enhancements
• All in one: All of the end-to-end functionality you need in a single platform
• High visibility: Track your entire fleet with real time visibility

DispatchTrack features lightweight implementation and onboarding, meaning that you can digitally transform your last mile delivery rapidly. A comprehensive implementation and deployment playbook is available to all customers for proactive change management.

Legacy solutions for food distributors often have slow time to value and only offer functionality in a limited area of the last mile journey, which means that they’re not able to drive profitability for food distributors in a comprehensive way. DispatchTrack, by contrast, puts you in a position to rapidly create new efficiencies and improve your delivery operations across the board. The result is that food distributors finally have the tools they need to tackle the last mile head on—improving both customer service and profits in the process.