“It’s like a farmers market being delivered right to your front door.” – Joshua Stark, Technical Director at Fresh Harvest
Meet Fresh Harvest
Atlanta-based delivery company Fresh Harvest is revolutionizing the way local organic produce and artisan-made goods reach Atlanta households. Fresh Harvest curates subscription boxes filled with fresh food, 80% of which is cultivated within a 70 miles radius of the Atlanta City Center. Fresh Harvest delivers between 3,000 and 6,000 boxes weekly using only fifteen drivers. Their customers explore a variety of boxes and easily sign up for regular deliveries. Fresh Harvest ensures that its customers receive the best produce available, tailored to their preferences.
Strong Community Outreach Builds Strong Staff and Loyal Partners
Apart from serving Atlanta residents, Fresh Market finds other ways to care for the local community.
Fresh Harvest Offers Refugees a Path Forward in LIfe
Twenty minutes outside of Atlanta, the city of Clarkston, GA proclaims itself as “the Ellis Island of the South.” Clarkston offers affordable apartment housing, public transportation, and close proximity to Atlanta. Within this community resides a large population of Burmese refugees. Fresh Harvest recognizes the potential and talent of this group and offers them work opportunities. In fact, Burmese refugees comprise 80% of the Fresh Harvest Staff.
Fresh Harvest Partners with Local Farmers for Farm-To-Table Success
Fresh Harvest recognizes the vital role that farmers play in ensuring the delivery of fresh and high-quality food to the people of Atlanta. Every Monday, farmers bring their goods to the Fresh Harvest warehouse, which drivers then deliver throughout the rest of the week. This means that from farm to table, Fresh Harvest products reach customers in less than a week from harvest. U.S. Department of Agriculture Data shows that in 2021, farmers received a record-low 14.5 cents for every dollar Americans spent on food. Fresh Market cares deeply for farmer relationships, paying an average of 50 cents to the dollar.
Route4Me Helps Fresh Harvest Reach Near Error-Free Delivery
Before Fresh Harvest made the decision to implement a route optimization solution, route planning took the Fresh Harvest fleet manager a whopping six hours daily. These painstaking hours produced routes for only the next delivery day and left the fleet manager with next to no time to spend overseeing drivers, maintenance, and general fleet operations. Since the implementation of Route4Me, route planning time takes a mere 15 minutes daily. With Route4Me and a fleet manager who actually has time to do his job, Fresh Harvest drastically reduced non-deliveries by 30-40%, with a missed delivery rate of 0.5%.
Fresh Harvest Drivers Conquer Delivery In Atlanta
To complete all weekly deliveries, Fresh Harvest requires 10-15 drivers driving optimized routes daily. Working with Route4Me, Fresh Harvest strives to make a delivery day as simple as possible for their hard-working crew. Drivers arrive at about 4am to fill their trucks. Once full, a driver grabs his tablet with the Route4Me mobile app, pops it into the truck, and simply follows directions provided by the app. Depending on route density, drivers visit between 50 and 120 locations on one route. During Thanksgiving week of 2021, these fifteen drivers delivered over 3,000 individual orders over two days with zero mistakes.
Seamless Integration Leads to Great Service
Route4Me’s API integrates seamlessly with Fresh Harvest’s in-house eCommerce platform giving customers, drivers, and staff a one-stop-shop for this farm-to-table solution. This integration, along with route optimization, delivery time windows, and stop priority settings give Fresh Harvest a hands-off approach to ensure goods reach customers fresh, nutritious, and on-time. The route optimization solution frees up Fresh Harvest to continue to care for the people of Atlanta, the Burmese refugee population, and local farmers.
