“We now know that we have a system that can accommodate our business in the best way possible.”

Red River Foods is a Commodity trading and importing company that’s been around for about 40 years. They specialize in tree nuts, dried fruits, seeds, and specialty snack products. They supply the bakery, confectionery, cereal, dairy, and snack food industries with the finest quality product ingredients. Red River has established a worldwide reach, serving a loyal customer base of over 200 companies with over 75 products sourced from more than 20 countries around the globe.

Though their home office is in Richmond, Virginia, they maintain offices strategically located near major ports on the east and west coasts of the United States including New York, Seattle, and California. Their global presence requires them to maintain a strong foothold in each of their main sourcing regions, with office in Ghana, India, China, Vietnam, and Turkey.

Red River was looking for a shuttle racking system to accommodate them in the best way possible. With there being so many different brands and systems out there, they needed to find the right system that could keep up with their growth.

“I’ve been with Red River for about 2 years,” says Roberto, Operations Manager at Red River. “I came in here to help set up this new facility we have in Richmond Virginia. We looked at traditional racking, pushback racking, drive in racking and then density racking systems. And we just found that given the investment that we had made in the building, that we could maximize the storage capacity and also make it easy to use and safe to use. And when you look at the different brands, the Radioshuttle one was the one that fit our needs the best.”

If Red River had gone with traditional racking, they would have fit about 700-900 pallet positions depending on the aisles. With the Radioshuttle system, they have over 3,000 pallet positions. That’s 3x as much storage! Which for Red River means product that’s not sitting in somebody else’s warehouse. Everything is now under their own watch and control.

“From the additional space, and how much faster it is, the investment has been worth it.” says Roberto.

Before we got the Radioshuttle, it was hard to keep track of inventory. Things were getting mixed up and misplaced. We’d have a truck out waiting for us, and we want to get these guys out there quick. And when you can’t find stuff – it’s hard to do it.

Michael, lead supervisor at Red River Foods

“In our business 5 – 10 minutes is a big deal, so before we got the Radioshuttle system, it was taking us 0 – 35 minutes to load a truck. Where as now with the system and the way it’s set up, we can probably load a truck in 15 – 20 minutes. Now we can take somebody who drives a forklift and within 15 minutes they have the system down. They know how to do it, and by the end of the day they’re able to put a whole container away in less than 20 minutes. Especially when compared with a traditional racking system, or with a push back racking system. Those take more time since the driver would be going to more than one spot of the warehouse. Whereas a Radioshuttle system keeps things faster and streamlined.”, says Michael.