7-Eleven Australia is making a major investment in its supply chain with a new partnership.
The tie-up with Emergent Cold will help support the company’s sustainable growth and ongoing focus on fresh food and innovation.
The new supply chain phase one is underway with ambient food and drinks delivered by one truck daily. Other categories will gradually migrate to the new supply chain with all categories through until August.
7-Eleven CEO, Angus McKay, said it is essential for the convenience chain to operate a supply chain that can rapidly scale and expand based on network growth and the continually evolving offer.
“We’ve been working on this project for three years. The new supply chain ecosystem will help our stores to make sure they have what their customers need when they need it. One delivery per day, instead of once a week for ambient and frozen products, will help our franchisees to better manage inventory control and cash-flow.
“It also has operational benefits as store team members are not having to manage huge delivery volumes at once, or daily multi temperature single vehicle deliveries,” McKay said.
The supply chain has met the challenge to deliver chilled and ambient products in the same truck delivery, something it is believed to be an Australian first.
Up to 70 trucks will deliver around 4.5 million product units weekly to 7-Eleven stores. On a daily basis this includes 4,000 sandwiches, 6,000 packs of sushi, 8,000 meat pies, 16,000 sausage rolls and 30,000 cartons of milk.
“With more than 700 stores, we have well and truly outgrown our previous supply chain system, we needed to control our own supply chain,” McKay said.
“Our new supply chain ecosystem with our strategic partner Emergent Cold will enable us to expand to meet our projected volumes and ambitious store network growth.”
McKay explained the new ecosystem will have a positive impact on the direct relationship the convenience giant has with many of its suppliers.
“We’re focused on working to deliver collective sustainable growth for our store owners, our suppliers and our business overall by ensuring our customers can buy the products and services they want, at the time and in the store that suits them, in the quantity they need.”
