With over 8,000 products stocked across fresh, frozen, chilled, ambient and non-food categories, Thomas Ridley delivers to schools and care homes, football clubs and pubs, farm shops and fine-dining establishments. Based in Suffolk, the company operates its own fleet of temperature-controlled vehicles.
Before implementing Podfather, Thomas Ridley relied on manual processes supported by paper documents. Thomas Ridley has already reduced paper consumption within its delivery operations by more than 50% a saving equivalent to nearly 40 trees per year.
Once routes are planned, goods are picked from the warehouse and loaded onto trucks, and estimated time of arrivals are automatically issued to customers. As the schedule progresses, customers can self-serve revised delivery times using real-time tracking information directly from the driver’s Podfather app.
Chris Davies, assistant transport manager at Thomas Ridley Foodservice, said: “Podfather has supported us at every step of the journey to ensure that the solution we needed was the solution they provided. As we have evolved and had to respond to changing market pressures, so have they, and I can confidently say that Podfather is here to stay—helping us live up to our pledge to deliver food for life.”
Part of the Caterfood Group, Thomas Ridley aims to deliver a personal and flexible service to all customers while operating in an eco-conscious manner.