The Group also guarantees a careful monitoring of the cold chain

Toupargel group was born with the arrival of domestic freezers in France, in the aftermath of the second world war. Its niche: the frozen via Toupargel home delivery and distribution of fresh produce and groceries with market square. This dual sign stands out from its competitors by proposing an original sales model. First, the client receives, by mail or delivery, catalogues referencing frozen products 1,000 and 4,000 fresh articles. A telemarketer then calls him to take his order, fourteen times a year for frozen foods and once a week for fresh food and grocery. The basket of the client is then transferred computer to one of the logistical platforms of the group to be prepared and packaged in individual boxes, identified by barcodes. Then he is palletized on tours of distribution and by widebody until the Agency of the nearest delivery of the final recipient in that it will be distributed by the "customer service attachés" vehicle bitempérature. This circuit allows to deliver 200,000 articles per day in a catchment area covering common 35,000 out of Paris intramural. If many of his colleagues play the card from the shows to gain in competitiveness, the Distributor deliberately chose to keep delays of delivery between 48 and 72 hours, because "our preparation of orders is the wire water." "If we were proposing shorter delivery times, would mechanically higher transport costs", says Roland Tchénio, CEO of the group.

New mesh

Behind this trade pattern hides a logistics organization delivered completely flat at the time of the redemption of Agrigel, subsidiary of the Group Unilever, seven years ago. In response to the doubling of capacity generated by this rapprochement, "we have completely abandoned our original business, the truck store, for the benefit of touring determined prior to the preparation of orders", summarizes the leader. Objectives: harmonize the references of products, sharing infrastructure and adapt information systems. Until then, each vendor was independent and Toupargel divided its flow in a network of two platforms for the preparation of orders relayed by fifty points of delivery. Agrigel, on the other hand, divided its volumes via a central warehouse, ten regional agencies and 200 points of delivery. The industrial strategy was to refocus its supply chain by product families and share the preparation of orders within four platforms redeployed by distribution area. Alongside 33 dedicated call centres to frozen products and a platform of telesales devoted to fresh products, the Group also reviewed its partition of downstream, with 130 agencies of delivery on the niche of frozen foods and 16 points of distribution of the costs. This new mesh enabled the industrial smooth planning, show more responsiveness at the local level and achieve economies of scale, particularly in terms of kilometres travelled.

The Group also guarantees a careful monitoring of the cold chain. Each movement of goods is drawn in real time through an information system fully redesigned at the time of the merger of the two entities and standardized around a solution created by Toupargel: Lydis commands, SAP for purchasing and supply management, software LM7 for the management of warehouses, Distriplanner to orchestrate the tours. This system is also likely to accelerate the device of "emergency" health crisis, since if one of the suppliers of the Group reports a problem requiring the recall of an article, "our alert system directly notifies customers impacted by voice message or SMS", says Roland Tchénio.