Supply chain increases pressure on suppliers and logistics companies

[coronavirus in Spain is reaching alarming numbers that have led to increasingly restrictive measures being taken.
Evidently, more in the Community of Madrid, Basque Country and La Rioja.
On Monday night and throughout Tuesday there were long queues in supermarkets in these regions.
This has caused supply problems in some of the main product lines.
And when a store runs out of products, logistics companies must come to the rescue by solving them as best they can.

Pressure from large chains on logistics companies

The big names in the sector have rushed to mobilize their logistics suppliers these days to increase the amount of goods at their disposal.
The purpose is to fill their warehouses to supply stores and avoid the risk of stock-outs.
According to the food suppliers themselves, orders have increased by 20 to 60% depending on the categories.
These have mainly been non-perishable products such as rice, pasta, cereals or canned tomatoes.
However, fresh foods such as bakery products, dairy products and their derivatives have also increased.
Ebro Foods, Spain’s leading rice company, confirms a 40% increase and that it has had to reorganize the work of its factories.

“We usually work with delivery margins between 5 and 6 days and now they ask for it in 2” (Ebro Foods).

So far, suppliers claim to be responding smoothly to this spike in demand.
However, you have no reason to worry.
All logistics and food companies are trying to explain to customers that we don’t have to go crazy.
You can stock more goods, but in the end, the customer will consume the same.
This panic supply is pushing warehouses to the limit of their capacity.
In the logistics sector, warehouses in Madrid, such as Carrefour, were at maximum capacity.
Mercadona, despite calling for calm, has had to reinforce its supply chain.

Juan Roig calls for calm

The president of the Logistics Employers’ Association puts the growth in purchases at 8% nationally this week.
Compared to 2019.
In specific terms, we do see a peak of 40% in non-perishable food and 100% in personal hygiene products.

“Cases of twice-daily deliveries are occurring.
It won’t last much longer, because the shelves are going to keep on recovering”

The belief is that this sudden “supply” will gradually decline over the next few days.
Messages of calm have been coming in succession during Tuesday the 10th.
The president of Mercadona, Juan Roig, attended to the media because of the images of his empty supermarkets:

“If there is something that can aggravate the situation, it is fear. I want to give the message to act calmly, prudently and to rationalize fear. The worst thing that can happen to us is to fall into fear. The situation is one of “normality” in the company’s internal processes and facilities, beyond an “atypical sale” of products such as gels or disinfectants.”

“On Monday afternoon we had in the Vitoria and Madrid stores an impulse buying reaction from customers to the decisions that have been made.
Also on Tuesday morning, especially in Madrid.
In the rest of Spain the situation is completely normal.
Supplies are guaranteed.
Stores will remain open and with product”.

All operators and logistics companies insist that the shelves will be full again early in the day as usual.
In the meantime, logistics industry associations are calling for common sense:

“It is not necessary to stockpile basic products as Spanish retailers are prepared to guarantee the distribution service of food products” (AECOC).

A good warehouse is a treasure, and Asmen has the one you need.

Receiving products in a warehouse is a process with a protocol to follow.
Before the arrival of the product, the order must be verified and the items received must match those on the documents.

Once the goods have been received, they are checked and inspected with respect to quality and whether or not they conform to the conditions stipulated in the purchase contract.
Once inspected, the goods are repalletized and assigned the internal warehouse codes and transported to their corresponding location.

During product management, the picking process takes place, i.e. separating a unit load from a set of products, in order to form the corresponding unit for the customer, packaging it appropriately for subsequent shipment.

Asmen takes great care in the whole process, in addition to having a transport division that makes it possible to ship directly to the customer.

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