From the vineyard to your hands, there is quite a journey associated with your glass of wine. Wine and any other spirit or beverage are handled with a specific set of beverage logistics standards in order to ensure that these products keep their original quality level through the whole supply chain.

The quality of your drink can be affected by many factors during its transportation, such as external temperature, packaging, and proximity to hazardous materials. Therefore, some freight forwarders have created logistics services specialized for the beverage industry. Drink Logistics is part of the Food and Drink Supply Chain services that top freight forwarders offer. The area of logistics offers services for both chilled and room temperature beverages. These services can include the design of innovative packaging solutions as well as a special cargo insurance for drinks.

If you are a beverage trader, it’s important that you hire a freight forwarder with the requisite knowledge and capability to carry out the beverage logistics services that you need. For example, your forwarder should be able to tell you that even though you can completely fill a 20” container with whiskey bottles, that doesn’t mean you should. You will probably need to leave a lot of space unoccupied due to certain restrictions applied to dangerous goods – because in the end, alcohol is considered a dangerous good.

If your import of wines comes into the US as LCL, the process might be even longer. This is because there are very strict regulations concerning wine box placement inside a container. The logistics process of beverages such as wine requires expert analysis and coordination.

Fines and delayed deliveries can result from improper shipping of alcohol. If a forwarder doesn’t follow the standards set for Drink Logistics, your shipment, as well as items near it, can be damaged. It is always best to talk to your forwarder about the specific needs of your product.

Beverage logistics, as with most other industries, benefits from advancements in logistics such as:

• Demand planning
• Software and IT
• Business Intelligence and Analytics
• Sales and Operations Planning
• Forecasting and Demand Planning,
• Warehouse management
• Procurement
• Inventory planning
• Freight forwarding,
• Traceability
• 3PL
• Cold Chain
• Food miles reduction
• Route planning