Frozen Pet Food Distributor Grows 7x While Keeping Routing to Just Seven Hours a Week
Big Country Pet Co. produces frozen, raw pet food and distributes it across North America from three locations in Niagara, Ottawa, and Calgary, using a fleet of approximately 27 vehicles.
Senior Logistics Manager Ed DeVries oversees all logistics for the company, including its own fleet deliveries, third-party shipments, and import/export operations.
When DeVries joined the company six years ago, the operation handled fewer than 200 deliveries per week. Today, Big Country fulfills 1,500 weekly deliveries – and during peak periods like post-holiday shutdowns, that number surges past 1,800. Despite this explosive growth, DeVries estimates that all routing work takes roughly seven hours per week. “You can route 250 stops inside of an hour,” he says. “The system is very efficient.”
Big Country delivers to both retail stores and residential customers, making proof of delivery and real-time communication essential to the operation. Manual Route Building Could Not
Keep Pace With Rapid Order Growth
Before DeVries arrived, the team was uploading delivery data into Route4Me but then manually dragging and dropping pins to build each route from scratch, a slow, inconsistent process that worked only at small scale. As order volume climbed, that approach quickly became unsustainable. The company needed a routing system that could absorb growth without becoming a bottleneck.
Zone Based Routing Turns a Full-Day Task Into a Repeatable One-Hour Workflow
Working with Route4Me’s support team, Big Country adopted zone-based routing – a feature that transformed how the team builds routes. DeVries and his staff now maintain 50 to 60 predefined zones. Each wefk, they export orders from their mainframe system, upload the file into Route4Me, and assign stops to the appropriate zone with a few clicks. Routes are then inspected for proper sequencing, store-hour alignment, and vehicle weight limits before being locked down and dispatched.
“Routing is not going to be the bottleneck,” DeVries explains. Even when volumes spike to nearly 1,900 deliveries in a single week, the additional routing time is negligible – perhaps fifteen extra minutes.
Photo and Signature Capture Resolves Delivery Disputes
Before They Escalate Every delivery — whether to a retail store or a home — is documented through the Route4Me driver app. Drivers collect signatures at store locations and photograph each drop off. This digital proof of delivery has become a critical tool for Big Country’s customer service team.
When a store reports a missing product, staff can review the delivery photos to determine whether the item was missed or simply misplaced. For home deliveries, a timestamped photo showing food on a customer’s doorstep settles most disputes immediately. On the rare occasion a photo reveals the wrong house, “I don’t have a red door,” the team can quickly investigate and make it right.
Automated Customer Notifications Build Trust and Reduce Inbound Service Calls
Route4Me’s notification system keeps Big Country’s customers informed at every stage. The day before a delivery, customers receive an email with an approximate delivery window. On delivery day, they receive alerts when the driver is approaching and again when the delivery is complete.
When delays occur, whether from traffic, mechanical issues, or other disruptions, drivers text the office once they fall more than an hour behind schedule. Customer service staff then proactively notify remaining stops by email, giving customers time to adjust their plans. “Buying our product should not be an inconvenience to the customer,” DeVries says. “Our delivery should be an asset, not a burden.”
Drivers Become the Face of the Brand With Data-Backed Support
With over 200 employees but only 35 drivers, Big Country recognizes that its delivery team represents the company to every customer, every week. DeVries encourages drivers to build relationships with store managers -answering questions, flagging concerns, and acting as a direct connection between the retailer and the company. Route4Me’s performance data helps DeVries give his drivers the recognition they deserve. “Not everything’s monetary,” he notes. “It’s nice for them to know that everything they do is appreciated and has an impact on our customer.”
About Big Country Pet Co.
Big Country Pet Co. is a Canadian producer of frozen, raw pet food serving both retail stores and home delivery customers across North America. The company operates out of three distribution locations in Niagara, Ottawa, and Calgary, with a fleet of approximately 27 vehicles and over 200 employees. Niagara serves as the main hub with 20 vehicles, while Ottawa runs 5 vehicles covering Kingston and Quebec, and Calgary handles Alberta distribution with additional third-party shipments reaching the rest of the country. Big Country recently began expanding into the United States, building on a logistics operation designed to scale without adding routing complexity.
https://bigcountryraw.com/
