The right quality in the right place

Nutricia Nutrition Clinique is a specialist in the field of medical nutrition and is part of the Danone Group. It offers innovative and high-quality products to improve the nutrition of patients with impending or existing malnutrition and special nutritional needs. Nutricia Nutrition Clinique (Nutricia) coordinates the delivery of its products to customers in close cooperation with Eurotranspharma, the leading French freight forwarder for the transportation of medical products in accordance with GDP (Good Distribution Practice) standards at controlled ambient temperatures. The transport requirements are demanding, both in terms of the products and Eurotranspharma's customers. The quality of the pallets plays an important role here. As Nutricia wanted to optimize the return concept for empty pallets to its distribution center, it contacted Pooling Partners. The logistics service provider specializes in the pool management of pallets in any desired quality. Eurotranspharma was impressed by the flexible and efficient solutions offered by the Europe-wide provider based in the Netherlands and agreed to the new logistics concept for the management of Euro pallets.

Goal: better traceability of pallets

Since it began in 2014, the collaboration between the freight forwarder Eurotranspharma, the logistics service provider Pooling Partners and Nutricia has become increasingly successful. The declared aim is to optimize the supply chain with better traceability of the pallets returned to the distribution center.

"Pooling Partners has understood our supply chain and ensures a quality standard for the load carriers that are delivered to our warehouse site every day."Bruno Peloin, Head of Supply Chain, Nutricia Nutrition Clinique

Bruno Peloin, Head of Supply Chain at Nutricia Nutrition Clinique, explains: "We were looking for a provider who could take on this challenge and help us to manage the supply flow optimally - especially in terms of the quality of the Euro pallets. Pooling Partners understood our supply chain and ensures a quality standard for the load carriers that are delivered daily to our warehouse location and are also used for processing customer orders. The logistics solution had to be meticulously worked out and functional from the outset in order to meet our requirements in terms of processes and quality."

Pallet flow at a glance at all times

To achieve this, Pooling Partners relies on the PAKi solution and its extensive experience with corresponding information systems. A powerful Microsoft ERP system is used for analysis and daily data processing. Nutricia has access at all times to delivery and collection points, the reporting of individual processes, scans of original documents or the localization of its pallets. Thanks to this intelligent solution, Nutricia is able to identify any problems with the transportation or return of pallets at an early stage and benefits from greater overall transparency in its processes. This makes Nutricia's new supply chain more efficient and even better connected to the supply flows. In this way, every single link in the supply chain works in the service of Nutricia's product quality.

Nutricia's medical products have high transportation requirements, partly because they have to be transported at a controlled ambient temperature. Photo: Nutricia

With the new system, Eurotranspharma continues to transport Nutricia's products efficiently on Euro pallets and can always react flexibly to the flow of goods. To this end, Pooling Partners provides first-choice Euro pallets in mint condition at the place of product packaging and collects them after use at the various return points in order to reuse them locally.

Simplified pallet exchange

Pooling Partners achieves quality enhancement with its PAKi solution. By intelligently managing the pallet flow, the pooling service provider ensures that the right quality is provided in the right place. Nutricia is free to decide on the number and required quality of Euro pallets according to its needs, from new to exchangeable in accordance with EPAL criteria. This simplifies pallet exchange considerably, as Nutricia can request a higher pallet quality than the company returns. The outstanding quality of service combined with Pooling Partners' high degree of flexibility in implementing the requirements of distribution centers contributes significantly to the success of this logistics concept.

Overall, Nutricia Nutrition Clinique benefits significantly from Pooling Partners' expertise in managing standardized, exchangeable load carriers such as Euro pallets - especially against the backdrop of an increasingly complex supply flow. The specialist in medical nutrition can therefore rely on a broad network of over 10,000 pooling stations across Europe.

Fabrice Chenut, International Sales Director at Pooling Partners and responsible for PAKi services, emphasizes: "Nutricia was open to our continuous improvements in pooling and the daily provision and return of Euro pallets. With our expertise, we are represented in over 22 countries, including France for the last 10 years. Among other things, we capitalize on our knowledge with the refinement exchange of exchangeable pallets and the different quality levels of the load carriers offered. The spectrum ranges from exchange in the same quality to sorted, as-new or brand-new pallets. This ensures that we can always adapt to the needs of individual industries."

Birgit Aigner