A globally-recognised freight forwarder, and one of the UK’s largest alcohol importers, Hillebrand approached Forest Freight in a time of need – requiring urgent pick-up, unpacking, and delivery of goods in a short timeframe.
Our experienced, professional teams worked round-the-clock to meet the challenge, helping Hillebrand to make their deliveries during the chaotic Christmas period.
What Hillebrand say about Forest Freight
Hillebrand’s Needs
For nearly two centuries Hillebrand has been leading import and export solutions for business across the globe. They employ over 2,400 people, have built relationships with thousands of industry leaders, and have become the first word in delivering cased goods, bulk container items and kegs. With the European market well-served, Hillebrand have ambitions to become the global leader in providing forwarding, transport and logistics of wine, beer, spirits, and goods that require special attention. Having already completed smaller projects with Hillebrand, they approached us with a bigger problem that they trusted us to solve; Forest Freight were asked to assist with a large-scale adhoc project to help on of Hillebrand’s largest UK customers, Tesco.
Due to various unforeseen circumstances, 175 Hillebrand containers were held at London Gateway, running the risk of incurring severe rental charges if they weren’t collected in a de-vanned in an adequate timeframe. With this information, we were asked to provide a near-instant solution to remove the containers from London Gateway, re-work and store the goods in our nearby warehouse before making the final delivery as per Tesco’s requirements.
Our teams wasted no time in fulfilling Hillebrand’s robust haulage requirements, providing a proposal of work that would see us swiftly and efficiently remove the outstanding containers from London Gateway, unpack the goods at our depot and prepare them for onward delivery. Due to our speed, pragmatism, and attention to detail, Hillebrand decided that Forest Freight was an excellent partner to complete the remaining works, awarding us 35 additional containers for collection and delivery.
We received the goods as non-palletised units, on slipmats that required specialist forklift equipment that we were able to order and implement quickly. Once the pallets were unloaded, our expert warehouse teams re-worked and re-palleted the goods in an organised system for easy delivery. We added value to the project by highlighting issues in the stock as we unpacked – saving both Hillebrand and Tesco costly rejections further down the supply chain.
The Result
Over the course of the project, we delivered over 150 Artic full loads, without a single failure. Hillebrand have since commended the dedication and effort of our team, having helped them strengthen the bond with one of their key UK customers. Since our successful partnership has grown, Hillebrand have offered Forest Freight first refusal on all future adhoc projects, indicating the level of trust they have in our work.
We have also been named as the sole logistics provider for Hillebrand’s Thurrock office, ensuring that all of their needs are met from our conveniently situated depot. Similarly, we have started a great working relationship with Trans Bulk Ocean, a subsidiary of Hillebrand , and are looking to develop partnerships on future projects.
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