So if the product does not get delivered on time, it's not usable. It gets damaged right away. So the amount of waste that that creates from a financial standpoint, from just a overall supply chain standpoint, from a sustainability standpoint it's, it's a lot. So the challenge is how do you focus on creating an amazing brand? How do you focus on creating amazing marketing, but at the same time, deliver on that promise that you're selling to your customers, so that they can enjoy your products? Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to episode six of the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast, the number one show focusing exclusively on the intersection of sustainability and supply chains. I'm your host, Tom Raftery, and I'm thrilled to have you here. A huge thank you to this podcast's amazing supporters. You make this podcast possible. If you'd like to join this community, support starts at just three euros or dollars a month, which is less than the cost of a cup of coffee. And you'll find the support link in the show notes of this or any episode or at tinyurl. com slash SSC pod Now in today's show, I'm excited to be chatting with Juan Meisel, CEO of Grip Shipping. And in the coming weeks, I'll be talking to Shannon Payne, who's SVP supply chain at MDSI, Mickey Vindaloo, who is the founder of Lakeview Consulting, Klaus Bretschneider from Lynx AS and Kenny McGee, CEO of ComponentSense. But, Back to today's episode. And as I said, today I'm talking to Juan. Juan, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself? Hey, Tom. Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here. So Juan Maisel, founder and CEO at Grip. Okay. And for people who are unaware, Juan, what is Grip? So at Grip, we create technology and provide fulfillment and shipping services for direct to consumer companies that are shipping perishable products. So that can be companies that are shipping, human grade pet food, ready to eat meals, groceries, specialty products, pharma, you know, probiotics, a wide range Uh, products, but everything that it's either frozen or refrigerated. Okay. And what is it you're doing for them? So we do technology fulfillment and logistics services. So I Grip, we now have five fulfillment facilities across the country. One in New Jersey, one in Florida, Michigan, Texas, California. And we get to more than 75% percent of the country in 24 hours and the rest in just 48. So we're the fastest company out there that's handling these specific type of products and the way that we have developed the platform and the services is me and Jimmy Cooper, our CTO, we both come from the background of what we call the problem. So we both were super early on in a company called ButcherBox, which a lot of you know now where you're used to ship frozen meat in the mail. And essentially with the issues that we have in developing and creating that supply chain is what we have now brought into Grip and, and it's how we have developed the platform for our customers. Okay. And your time at Butcherbox sounds like a masterclass in scaling operations. What were the biggest supply chain challenges you faced in those early days and how did you overcome them? So, I mean, early on at ButcherBox, when we were getting started, it was all about how do we get people to buy a box of frozen meat in the mail, not even ship it, not even deliver it is, you know, I'm talking a decade ago. So. Hey, how do we actually get people to understand that they can buy a box of frozen meat and it gets delivered to their houses? So it's mostly a marketing, a communication problem where, you know, after the first year we grew so fast because we work with very influential people in the food space that, that help us overcome that block and, or that challenge of people understanding that they can actually do it. And we grew so fast that our marketing and messaging problems actually became logistics and fulfillment and supply chain problems because we now figure out that all the thousands of boxes that we were selling, we now have to deliver and now, you know, you're not, you're not talking about a box that contains, you know, a t shirt or shoes, or, you know, even a, a, a laptop that, if you get one day late, you can still wear, you can still use it. You know, sure it's not the best customer experience, but you can still use it. The actual product is not damaged. At ButcherBox and, and other companies and our amazing customers, it's, it's much, much different. So if the product does not get delivered on time, It's not usable. It gets damaged right away. So the amount of waste that that creates from a financial standpoint, from just a, you know, overall supply chain standpoint, from a sustainability standpoint it's, it's a lot. So the challenge is how how do you focus on creating an amazing brand? How do you focus on creating amazing marketing, but at the same time, deliver on that promise that you're selling to your customers. So that they can enjoy your products. So a ButcherBox, after we scaled exponentially, we started having a lot of issues where we were getting, you know, products where I thought we were paying way too much for fulfillment and shipping. We didn't have the right technology to dynamically understand how were we supposed to be shipping those boxes. So what we were essentially forced to do is trying to patch all that together internally and hire engineers and just try to get creative about it. But at the end of the day, we were not really a supply chain or a logistics right fulfillment company. We were, you know, an awesome brand that, procures some of the best meat in the world and, you know, has a beautiful point of sale system. So those were some of the challenges that we were facing is. Hey, how do we keep doing that and spending our resources where it matters the most while still being able to provide an amazing, you know, delivery and logistics experience to our customers. Okay. And what were the issues that you came across while there that you said, Hmm, maybe I should set up my own company solving these issues for other companies? I mean, on like very specific issues you're dealing with. It's been some of the worst nights I've had is, if you have a thousand boxes going to California. And there's a wildfire and you don't know about it in time or you maybe know about it and it's in the back of your head, but you don't actually have the systems to react dynamically to it and say, okay, these boxes that are going to this region of California, I'm going to proactively hold and let the customer know. Then all of a sudden you have $100,000 on the road of boxes that you already pre packed, you already have added refrigerant, like dry ice or geopack stool and it's boxes and, meat in this case that it's outside of a controlled environment. So the clock is ticking like the, at the time that you add the box to a truck, the clock is ticking so, you know, just multiple issues like that, where we just didn't catch events in time where maybe we also had heat waves and we didn't add the amount of refrigerant that we were supposed to, or maybe the final mile carrier was not performing you know, at good rates, but we still, we still kept shipping boxes with that same supplier or that same carrier to the same zip codes, even though if we looked at the data, we knew that it was going to fail. So it was just how much we were forced to do all these things manually and not having the right systems in place. And then at the same time, I actually had a good amount of companies, like very, very well recognised brands, reach out to me, a few years ago and say, Hey, Juan, you know, I see that you guys have been able to scale ButcherBox to a certain point. Like, how are you guys actually doing this? Because, you know, I'm not profitable. You know, I'm losing money every time I ship a box. My thaw or damage rate is, you know, anywhere from two to 4%, which means that all those boxes that you're getting shipped in the mail, you know, a lot of them are just, getting damaged and, and you're hurting that lifetime value experience of your customers. So just by matching my personal experience of, Hey, we don't actually have the right tools to do these, even though we're a half a billion dollar company already. And then we have all these companies reach out to me and say, Hey, how are you actually doing this? Then that's when essentially about three years ago, it clicked for me. And we said, Hey, there needs to be someone solving this. Like there's really no one like head down solving the supply chain issues for companies that ship frozen and refrigerated items in the mail. And part of the reason why I think that that had not happened before it's because this is a relatively new market that has grown exponentially over the last decade or so. But when you compare the perishable shipping market versus the regular e-commerce, you know, regular e-commerce has been around for let's call it 30, 35 years now. And it's been exponentially growing since then. So you've had a lot more time for all this technology and all these companies to, develop. And then also the solutions are much, much simpler. So you don't actually need to come from, the problem as we call it to develop a solution that ships t shirts or shoes in the mail. But you do have to come from the problem to develop a solution that ships food or pharma in the mail because of how many variables and how specific the decision making needs to be. We're essentially one of the first classes to graduate from, that problem and just going head down and building a solution for this. Nice, nice. And You're using AI to predict climate disruptions. Can you walk us through maybe a real life example of how your technology helped mitigate some kind of potential shipping disaster? Yeah, of course. And it's actually a very similar example that I just went through that happened this last week. So there's a wildfire going on in California right now in the Malibu region called the Franklin fire. It's been mostly contained. It's about 54 percent contained. You know, to, to this point, but we practically held boxes that we're going to that wildfire. So a lot of our customers offer subscription offerings to their customers. So that means that they buy once and then every single time, let's call it you know, next month the subscription just recurs. So it's not like someone is proactively going to the website and placing the order and thinking that their box is going to be delivered to a wildfire. As someone that might have subscribed, you know, a year ago or six months ago and their box is just running on, you know, on a recurrent basis. So before shipping all these boxes, our system essentially checks every single zip code, every single major weather event that could be going on in the country. And then it matches that to all the orders that we have in our system. And then it proactively like essentially understands the gravity of the event. And then puts the orders on hold. So we held hundreds of orders going to California last week, specifically because there was a wildfire around the Malibu region. So, it like one specific example on how we're using the technology and, how fast we can do these things. But that's essentially a one to one to, Hey, let's not, throw product out. Let's, you know, improve the sustainability of the supply chain by not having to then reship all these boxes. And then also let's keep the customer happy because if you're dealing with a wildfire, the last thing that you want to know is that you have $200 worth of steaks, being delivered to your house because you're not even there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you don't want to come back to a barbecue. Yep. And what about things like waste reduction? Packing waste is a huge issue in e commerce. How can companies kind of strike a balance between product protection and sustainability while still meeting customer expectations? It's a very fine line that the only real way to dance around that line and being profitable is introducing technology to it because there's no single human being human being that can dynamically make all these decisions to thousands of boxes and thousands of orders before they ship and, you know, be efficient about it. So I'll give you a few examples. You know, one of them is. If you're shipping a box to let's say the Chicago market and your carrier is delivering at 99.5% on time delivery and the temperatures outside are, you know, minus five degrees Fahrenheit and it's a two day time in transit, like you don't need 10 pounds of ice in that box. Just scale back and just add five pounds of ice to that box. So you have saved a couple dollars in the, in the dry ice. You have saved space inside the box that you can then go down on a different box size. And then you have also now saved on, you know, the, the shipping costs, and then also brought down CO2 emissions of something, you know, not shipping something that you didn't necessarily have to ship. So that's on the side of, Hey, let's, let's scale back and let's make this box more profitable and let's reduce waste on that front. But then if you think about on the other front, if you're shipping a box to Texas and it's the middle of the summer and it's 110 degrees in Texas, and this box is, you know, let's call it a one day time in transit, which means it takes 24 hours to get to the customer. And the carrier could be performing well, but you might have to that to that one specific box. Not add just five pounds. You might have to go up and add 10 pounds to that box and that's much less waste. And that's a much better experience than just adding five pounds to that box and having that box being damaged because then you just, you know, essentially damaged, let's say 10 to 20 pounds of food that you were shipping. And then that customer is going to lose trust in your company. And then you also have to reship that box. So that's more waste created there. So that's why I say it's a fine line because it can just go both ways, depending on where that box is shipping from and where that box is shipping to. And that's where you need technology to be able to adjust to, to, you know, those dynamic decisions. It's much easier if you're just shipping boxes to, you know, one city let's call it, even though you probably still need some technology to do it. But, you know, there's around 50,000 zip codes in the U. S. And, it's just not, not possible to do it without the technology, but it's a very fine line that you, that you can definitely dance around. And what about the idea of using regional carriers as opposed to national ones? You know, what's the case for partnering with them? Is there a case for partnering with them? Does it have an impact on sustainability? Yeah, absolutely. So the, the idea behind these is partner with companies and use services where they perform the best. So there's, there's not a single service or a single company where you can say, Hey, they are the best at every single zip code and every single region of the country. It's just not true because they are dealing with physical assets and those assets are placed in different regions of the country. And then those assets also have, or those buildings also have, you know, different labor components that some companies might be better at managing than others, or then also they have some different vehicle or model components that some companies might be better managing than others, depending on the region and the specific zip code of, where that box is going. So for that reason, what we do is. We just choose the best from all the different providers out there. And that includes national carriers like FedEx and UPS. And that also includes a bunch of different regional carriers and much smaller companies, depending on where the box is going. So we have, you know, millions of shipments that have flown through our network and based on that, we know what building and what route every single box is going to go through. And then based on that, we analyse our options based on performance and cost. And that's how we dynamically, every single time we're going to ship a box, we choose the best supplier that we can send this one box with. And if we look at the e commerce boom that you talked about earlier, it's obviously not slowing down the opposite. It's building up, particularly in perishables. So what unique supply chain challenges does this space face, that non perishable shippers might not even think about. So one of the challenges is understanding how you can adapt the operation on the ground to what software and machines say. There's definitely a lot of room for there to be a disconnect between both worlds because with a piece of software, you know, as long as you, as you develop it correctly, You can, you can make very specific decisions of how to ship a box and you can be very dynamic about it, but if you don't have that same flexibility on the ground, then you're just going to have a disconnect. Where you're not going to be able to get to the level of sophistication that you need. And that's actually one of the main reasons why we decided a few years ago to go and open our own fulfillment operations. Because, the software is nice and you know, it definitely has improvements for the performance of the boxes and the customers. But where the magic really happens is when you match both. And where you say, okay, I'm structuring my supply chain and the operation on the ground to match the capabilities that I have on the software side. And then you do the opposite as well to, to where you have a very good relationship between both worlds. And that's where the magic happen That's where you can see a lot of the improvements in the supply chain. This whole sector, I'm guessing it's quite seasonal, you know, with peak seasons and troughs. So what are some key strategies brands should adopt to survive peak seasonality while staying sustainable as well? So it's pretty interesting because I wouldn't necessarily call it seasonal from a demand perspective. There's definitely some brands that experience seasonality, but when you look at the market as a whole. There's a lot of these companies and products are running on subscriptions. And others are things that people, you know, use quite often either way. So a good amount of the market is, it's not seasonal. There are, there are some companies that I would call more seasonal that, you know, are maybe in the gifting space. But other than that, I think there is a pretty well established growing demand through the year instead. So from a demand perspective, not too seasonal, but that being said, the challenging part with this is that the rest of the market is very seasonal with the peak season and with, you know, black Friday, cyber Monday and the holidays and Christmas and people just buying stuff in the mail. And we as a market. Or as a specific sub sub segment of the market, we're using a lot of the same infrastructure from a logistics standpoint. So we're essentially sharing the resources with other companies that are, 2Xing, 3Xing the volume and, and the demand. And we, as a sub market, we just have to learn and use technology to be able to adapt to that condition. So as an example, if we know that the week after Thanksgiving, so the week of Cyber Monday we're seeing specific, you know, demand increases or specific, behaviors in the logistics, depending on where the box is going, we can adapt to those by being more conservative with boxes by adding more refrigerant, or by even maybe holding some of the boxes that we can hold that we can ship in the next week. If the final customer is fine with that. And that way we are using the data we're using technology to be you know, much more proactive and understand that, Hey, even though we, as a market. might not have, you know, a 3X, or a 2X peak season. We're sharing the same resources from a logistic standpoint. So we need to use data to be able to understand what the impact of that is in the, in the market. And how do we, plan around it? And if we look. I don't know, let's say five or 10 years down the line, what role do you see AI and technology playing in shaping more sustainable and efficient supply chains? Being able to make decisions much more informed and, and much, much faster. I think we're only getting started with using the variables. to be dynamic, to improve the performance of the boxes, to reduce cost, to, you know, reduce the environmental impact that we have. But I think that AI and the data processing capabilities are going to get us much, much better as an industry to just involve different metrics or different variables that we weren't even thinking about, five years ago or, or to this date. I think that we're going to be able to process data much, much faster. And that's going to make everything much more dynamic. Great. Look forward to that. And speaking of environmental factors, climate resilience is on everyone's radar, but we often hear it as more of a buzzword in your experience, what does it really mean for supply chains to be climate resilient? I think goes back to the data and being able to react to it on a proactive basis instead of on a reactive basis after the fact. There's amazing forecasts out there with a lot of data collection that, you know, that includes the major weather event that we were, we were just talking about, but that also includes different temperature swings and different humidity swings or, you know, precipitation swings across the country. And, they vary tremendously, you know, if you have a heat wave and that just, happen to affect three days of next week, but you already know that today, then, you know, the question is, how can you plan for that? If you know for that today, or if you know, there's going to be, you know, a blizzard in the Rockies or, in the famous Donners Pass from you know, Nevada into California, how are you planning for that today? If you're shipping boxes from California on to, you know, to the east, let's say, you know, from California into Nevada or, or Utah, then that's just going to impact, you know, majority of the orders that are going that way, or on the other side, if you're shipping boxes from, you know, Utah and you have to get into California and you can't actually get through Donners pass next week, because there's going to be a blizzard there, you know, it's a question of, Hey, how are you proactively planning for this? And, every single day, there's much more accurate data out there that companies can use. But you just need to be able to adapt like your team to it, you know, your operation to it and the actual building on the ground as well. Okay. you ever get conflicting forecasts? Like, know, one data service says Donner Pass will be closed next week due to snow and the other says naw, it'll be wide open. We, yeah, we do of course. And, and you know, although it's getting more accurate and you have more data sources that you can, that you can compare you know, it happens to all of us, right? Sometimes you go to your weather app on your phone and it says you're going to rain two hours and then you go out and it's sunny and sunshine. So we try to always you know, compare the different data sources and then use the knowledge of our logistics team to make decisions and then also compare that to the past because the past is also you know, a lot of times a very good indicator of how the different, events impact the boxes. So as an example, we see, you know, certain type of blizzards, depending on the inches of precipitation could make the probability of a box being delayed being 10x versus not being a blizzard. So we understand that then we can essentially plan for the worst. In most scenarios and, we can essentially be on the conservative side and say, Hey, there, there is an 80% chance for this blizzard to happen. And we're just going to play with that 80% chance. We're not going to go on the other 20% chance. You know, if we were again, shipping t shirts or shirts in the mail maybe we just go with the 20% chance. But in this case, there's so much at stake there's like these boxes have a high, such a high average order value. And also the importance of the products being delivered are so high because people are usually going to either feed their families with what's been delivered or it's a very thoughtful gift or it's something that they need for their daily lives. If you're talking about a ready to eat you know, frozen meal, or you know, if you're talking about the pharma products. So. The stakes of what's being delivered is so high that you want to be within the 80% of, you know, the conservative side and not the 20%. Sure, sure. I'm curious, what's the most surprising or unusual shipment Grip has ever managed? And do you have any fun stories about perishables that we wouldn't expect? It's a good question. I mean, in ButcherBox times, we have definitely shipped boxes with, hundreds of packs of bacon. before, you know, people that just have a, a pretty big love for bacon to the point where, you know, we had to do like multiple boxes of bacon going to the same address. And you know, that, that bacon, you know, it's great, but I don't know who would buy so much. So I think, I think that's, that's definitely one that we were very intrigued about. Okay. Very good. For any brands listening who are just starting to think about reducing their logistics footprint, what's one practical step they should take today? I think the, the first thing is see where your customer base is. So that you can get closer to them in bulk. So the way to reduce your footprint is you get as close as you can in bulk to your customers. And that way the parcel or like the one box singular shipment has a much shorter, distance that it has to travel. And that always has the biggest footprint, the biggest cost. And that's why we've opened the facilities in the places that we have essentially looking at data and seeing, okay, where are our boxes going? Like where are our customers, customers ordering from, and how can we get as close as we can with inventory in bulk to where they are? So that we reduce the distance of the actual parcel or the single box delivery. So I would say, you know, start by seeing where your customers are, start by seeing you know, where your products are going and just try to get us as close as you can to them. And there's of course the challenge that you don't want to distribute your inventory too thin. Because then the cost of carrying your inventories, it's too big. So there is definitely some math that you can do to understand if it makes sense for you to be, you know, one building versus two versus three versus maybe all the way to five but you know, that's just some, some math that you can do to figure those numbers out. And what would be, do you think some misconceptions that companies have about making their supply chains greener and how would you debunk those myths? I think one is companies trying to be very consistent about how they ship boxes could be a misconception because I think it should be the complete opposite. You should introduce as much variability as you can. Of course, there is, you know, the whole equation of diminishing returns where, for example, if you're shipping with just one box size and you're trying to be consistent with it, and you're trying to say, okay, I'm going to get, you know, more economies of scale, but just shipping with one box size. Then you might actually, you know, like cut the cost and cut the amount of air that you're shipping by half if you go to two or three box sizes and that's awesome, but of course you shouldn't go to, you know, 10 or 20 box sizes to try to solve for every single instance of it, because you're just going to go into diminishing returns. So I think the misconception there is that one, just being consistent with how you ship boxes is not necessarily always the best and that there's some variability that you can introduce to the equation to, you know, essentially get the best of both worlds. And what excites you most about the future of sustainable supply chains? Are there any emerging trends or technologies that you think would be game changers? I mean, all of it Tom. I think I'm an eternal optimist by nature. But I think the capabilities of processing data with the different AI models that have been developed over the last five years or so are going to change and have a massive impact on, on the way that people manage supply chain, because everyone is just going to be able to make much, much more informed decisions. And that goes every everywhere from like, Hey, think about the different variables that go into buying a car or the different variables to go into buying your house. There's so many variables that can go into that, that you as a person might not have the capability of 1), identifying them all. But 2) like doing all the analysis required to then make your most informed decision on those like big purchases that you do as a human being, where I think it's the same on a supply chain standpoint, where there might be data points, as I was seeing before that you're not even tracking right now that could have a massive impact on, the footprint and how you ship your boxes. And then also the capability of the system that we have of processing them all. That's all just going up and to the right in terms of the amount of variables and how fast you can process and make decisions. So I'm very excited about that because that's only going to improve from here on. Great. And, if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about the supply chain industry overnight, what would it be? Reducing waste. there's still so much waste out there by, just companies and supply chains, not adapting fast enough that's the one thing that if you ask me, Hey, you can do it like in the next hour and just eliminate completely the waste, I'll do it because like waste is waste, right? It's just not benefiting anyone. You know, maybe it could benefit, on a short term as an example, like the company that you buy boxes from, if you're buying boxes that are like much, much bigger than what you need. Yeah, sure. That box might be, you know, might see an increase in revenue in the short term or that box company might see an increase in earning the short term. But in the long term, their customer is just spending much more money than they should. And then they're being less profitable than they should. And then they're creating more waste than they should. So the long term is not going to be, good for that company, which means he's not going to be good for the partner or the supplier of of the boxes. So I think waste might create, you know, some short term gains for some companies, but it's not what, you know, long term a sustainable supply chain where everyone wins looks like. Cool. A left field question. If you could have any person or character alive or dead, or fictional a spokesperson for sustainable supply chains, who would it be, and why? Uh, it's a good question. And this is, I think also going to be left field answer, but I would actually have it be some type of AI model that we can give a name to, because again, what I was saying before is that I don't think no human being is able to analyse all the variables and all the metrics that you have to, to actually put into all these models or into all the thought processing to make the best decisions for sustainability. There is, you know, some things where you can think about, you know, short term wins to sustainability that might actually have a long term negative impact. Or the other way around as well. You might have, you might think about some long term positive impacts on sustainability, but that they're not, you know, economically feasible right now. So people just don't adopt them and you just don't, end up making an impact. So we can have some type of, you know, supercomputer, AI model that just takes all these variables. And actually comes up with the most, with the answer that is going to create or have the biggest impact on sustainability right now. I think I would just go with that and we can give them whatever name you can think of. Long as it's not HAL. There you go. Cool. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Juan. Is there any question I haven't asked that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to think about? No, I think you've, you've asked the right questions. When, when I think about sustainable supply chains, I always keep going back to the unique economic and the financial incentives behind it, because for things to be sustainable in the future, they just need to make sense economically because that's, that's how the world works. And that's how, you know, financial incentives and people and companies work. So I definitely encourage people and companies to think about, when they're trying to push for sustainability, how can that also be economically feasible in today's world? So that, people can actually get behind the idea and corporations can get behind those ideas. So that, they end up just doing stuff for the greater good of humanity. Juan that's been really interesting. If people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today, where would you have me direct them? You can find me on LinkedIn Juan Meisel or, you know, Twitter. I'm not that active there, but I'm trying to be. Share some more of my thoughts there. Or then you can also go to our website. If you're interested in our company, Gripshipping. com but yeah, feel free to, you know, send me a message or yeah, follow me on LinkedIn. Juan, that's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today. Thank you, Tom. Thank you for having me. Okay. Thank you all for tuning into this episode of the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast with me, Tom Raftery. Each week, thousands of supply chain professionals listen to this show. If you or your organization want to connect with this dedicated audience, consider becoming a sponsor. You can opt for exclusive episode branding where you choose the guests or a personalized 30 second ad roll. It's a unique opportunity to reach industry experts and influencers. For more details, hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn, or drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com. Together, let's shape the future of sustainable supply chains. Thanks. Catch you all next time.