TLC's Cranberry Connection was a complete supply chain solution before the term existed. It provided source-to-shelf services for the nation's largest co-op of growers, improving product quality and lowering landed costs.
TLC's Beaver Dam Logistic Center (BDLC) has been in continuous operation since 1975 and today provides food processing and storage solutions for leading national and regional clients. It's the history of this unique center that makes it interesting.
Before Supply Chain was Cool
The Cranberry Connection, while no longer unique, exhibits TLC's long history of responding to market conditions and client needs with innovative, long-lasting solutions - not many others have a 30+ year old solution still relevant in today's supply chain climate.
The Secret Ingredient - Cranberries
We are all familar with cranberry juices, jams and related products. This however, is only a small part of the cranberry story. As a food additive, coloring agent and flavoring component, the cranberry is a widely used fruit. In fact retail sales account for only a fraction of the total annual production.
King Cranberry
Located in the heart of Cranberry Country, the BDLC was originally built as a fresh fruit (and vegetable) processing center. Central Wisconsin is one of two areas of the US where the Cranberry is King. Each year this region accounts for xx% of total US production.
The Harvest
If you've ever seen cranberries being harvested you know just how unqiue this fancy fruit is. Cranberries grow on bushes that live in bogs or low-lying, contained areas. Each year at harvest time these huge bogs are flooded. Since cranberries float, they are skimmed off the top with special harvesting equipment.
From field to freezer
The initial purpose of the Beaver Dam Logistic Center was to receive, process, store and ship cranberries and cranberry products. Built with high-bay freezers and automated put-away equipment, the BDLC set new standards at the time for frozen warehouse automation.
Harvested berries need to be processed or frozen promptly. Sugars quickly begin converting to starches, impacting flavor and quality.
Prior to the BDLC, berries were trucked to distant freezing locations, processed, loaded onto refrigerated trucks and shipped again, either for further processing or for long term storage prior to eventual re-shipment and processing.
Early Innovator
The BDLC helped change the cranberry processing industry. Now one local facility could do it all. Growers would ship product directly from the fields. Placed in massive totes, it would be washed, cleaned and then flash-frozen in special freezing rooms.
The fruit, now stable, was ready for additional handling. Some were packed and palletized for immediate shipment. Some were readied for bagging in our fruit/vegetable packaging center. The majority of the volume however was readied for storage in BDLC's two massive, zero degree, high-bay automated storage rooms.
Vegetables and more
Located in one of America's premier growing regions, the BDLC continues to process, freeze and package an array of locally grown produce, including cranberries.
The features that once made the Beaver Dam Logistic Center unique are now common across the supply chain. The automation it employed, considered overkill in its day, is once again in favor for complex DC solutions.
The fresh-to-freeze concept is now accepted as common practice and the ability to perform multiple processes within the walls of a DC is again in favor as fuel and transportation costs continue to rip apart once stable supply chains.
INNOVATE, INNOVATE, INNOVATE
While there is much that can be learned from our Cranberry Connection, clearly the most important lesson is that you must continue to innovate - no matter the cost.
Now in our second century of delivering innovative, market-focused solutions, TLC is your Supply Chain One.
Epilog: Far from mothballed, the BDLC is as busy as ever. It is also going through yet another transition. It will be re-tasked as a MACC, the latest in grocery distribution solutions from TLC. And the innovation continues.