Handle with care: the extraordinary complexity of a wine shipment

Being able to handle correctly the shipping of fragile goods – e.g. wine, beverages or water – has always represented a challenge for any logistic organization involved in the process. Aside from the physical transitions between trucks and warehouses, a high level of competence is involved in both handling the product and knowing how to manage the correct documentation and procedures.
 
As the old saying goes, well begun is half done. Correctly receiving the goods is a great starting point for any logistic operator. Fragile goods require adequate packing materials and space in the truck in order to be moved from the beginning of their journey towards the final consignee. Little can be done if the package provided is not suitable: bad placement on the truck or any hard braking on the road could provoke a disaster.
 
Both the unloading and the handling phases are very important. Regardless of the shipment being immediately forwarded or stocked in a warehouse, any fragile product must be managed with extreme care. The goods could suffer accidental damages or even end up broken any time a logistic operator handles them.
 
Once in the warehouse, logistic operators must check the accuracy of the provided documentation. Transport documents are extremely important when managing the shipment of alcoholic products, regulated by excise duties. In Italy a national shipment won’t give you any headache, but that may vary a lot if the consignee is located abroad. In that case FERCAM is able to provide its customers with great support, thanks to a series of complementary services: from legal consulting to custom duties, through the availability of dedicated spaces as tax warehouses and Instrastat declarations.
 
If the documents are cleared, the order can be generated. Warehouse operators must then label the single packages or the pallets due to depart overnight, based on the consignee and the service required by the customer. Labelling is a very delicate operation: making a mistake at this point means the goods will be sent to the wrong destination. The sender can facilitate the whole process by printing its own labels, providing the transport company with labelled packages. FERCAM offers to its customers many IT tools: interfacing the operative systems on many levels is one of them, allowing the customer and the transport company to exchange the shipment data and even printing the labels remotely, already having filled out all the info for the required service.
 
Why are we focusing so much on services? That’s pretty simple. The logistic operator has to be able to cater to the needs of any kind of consignee. It is pretty common for a private recipient or for those operating within the Ho.Re.Ca. circuit to require an appointment over the phone to fix a date for delivery. A similar situation can apply also to those operating as distributors or within the supermarket’s logistics, usually requiring to respect fixed hours for delivering the goods.
 
During the years, FERCAM has developed a high level of skills and expertise within its network, thus being able to provide high quality solutions in Italy and abroad thanks to a very diffused presence of branches and partners. Any type of transport or logistic necessity can be developed, even for those customers that need to ship fragile goods.
 
Are you looking for shipping fragile goods and you need more information? Discover all the possible solutions FERCAM offers via its Distribution division, also for packages and pallets.