Frozen Food Packaging - Coldwater Seafood

In a relationship that extends back over four years, Benson Group and Coldwater Seafood are making the most of technology to help the supplier overcome supply chain management issues with regard to the packaging element of frozen food product.

Benson Group has direct access to confidential product forecast information from the customer, which means that it can produce the packaging requirements for the customer in advance of its needs.

Benson Group is provided with access via the Hugmar system with regard to sales forecasts covering some four months ahead. The supplier can view a range of products in each profile in order to maximise production runs, and therefore create production efficiencies. Limited access to the customer's mainframe system means that Benson personnel can then raise a purchase order and, using an order status field, the system automatically generates an e-mail sending details through to the relevant buyer at a Coldwater Seafood production site.

As the client has up-to-date knowledge of product issues, such as imminent pack re-design or product ingredient related issues, they need to check orders to see if these fit in with the company's future plans. Any necessary adjustments are made and then using the order status field it is then e-mailed back to Benson, enabling them make any changes and return a finalised purchase order for client sign-off.

Once the production run takes place final product count figures are added to the stock details at Benson Group and are called off weekly by the customer for final product packing.

The system offers a "hand-in-hand" production system, with Benson Group working closely with the customer. This works especially well for frozen food production, as this market experiences less fluctuation with regard to external issues such as the weather. The system works well with the chilled sector too although there is more fluctuation in this area.

Benson Group handles the packaging requirement for some 500 product lines for Coldwater Seafood, and this method of working has taken the average cost per pack down. Using the Hugmar system to check the requirements of other products within the same profile ensures that the ideal price per unit of the carton relevant to volume order is achieved and there are not too may price point variants for packaging. Cost savings offered by this system were closely monitored by Benson Group with a detailed report provided for the customer for the first two years of the project detailing the costs saved against the previous pack producers.

Coldwater Seafood employs over 650 people across the UK. The company is a major frozen and chilled seafood supplier to Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Morrisons, Iceland and Aldi. Over 40 different species of fish and shellfish are processed across the business each week. Coldwater Seafood works closely with its suppliers to make sure that all of its raw materials, packaging and ingredients come from sustainable resources.