With chillier temperatures right now in the Southeast and more inclement weather on the way, some shippers are deep into preparation mode for the days ahead. "The cold weather we're getting here is really affecting things," says Andrew Scott, VP of sales and business development for the Nickey Gregory Company. "It's cold today and then there are two fronts coming in with rain, snow and ice on Saturday through Monday and that will go across the Carolinas and Virginia"
For Nickey Gregory Co., which delivers to 11 states overnight out of Atlanta including as far north as Kentucky and West Virginia and as far West as Louisiana, there are concerns around the weather limiting deliveries ahead. "This is tough to navigate through," says Scott. "We sell to a lot of last mile companies delivering to restaurants, hospitals and schools whereas we deliver to distribution centers. Our customers perform the last mile and if they don't have any deliveries or can't make deliveries, they start getting backed up with their own inventories."
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Gauging customers' needs
Preparing for such weather can be challenging given that sometimes, customers might start cancelling orders that they buy directly from their own vendors and maybe rely on a company like Nickey Gregory for product. Or customers might get backed up on their inventories which further backs things up in the pipeline and then markets fall with no demand for a few days. "It's a dilemma about how you plan ahead for this–whether you go really light on inventory or go heavy and hope that your customers went light and then they're going to lean on you when that weather passes," Scott says.
The company also has a retail support division servicing independent retailers DSD across Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas. "So we're trying to plan ahead and make sure we have drivers in place. We're telling retailers to order heavy before the weekend because grocery stores get hit really hard when bad weather is approaching and we might not be able to deliver to them until Monday or Tuesday," he says.
© Nickey Gregory Co.
Tight produce markets
At the same time, with weather in growing regions such as South Georgia and Florida being chillier than usual, it's also slowed down growing on a number of items including strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, bell peppers, eggplant, cabbage, green beans and more. "With product in Florida, we can get that to us overnight and we still have really good shelf life and good legs on the product, versus maybe buying out of California or the Northwest," says Scott, noting that cold weather is also affecting production in Mexico. "Overall, there are some pretty high markets right now."
So for now, the company is calling customers to determine what their needs may be in the coming days and if they are open or closed. "We might not load an extra load or two and just kind of wait and see. If we're sold out of something, that's okay because we're not throwing it away," adds Scott.
In the meantime, the company is also preparing for something a little further ahead: Southern Exposure which is Feb. 26-March 1 in Orlando, Florida. It will exhibit at the show at booth #103.
For more information:
Andrew Scott
Nickey Gregory Company
Tel: +1 (404) 366-7410
[email protected]
https://nickeygregory.com/
