Candor packaging innovation seeks to create visible logistics difference
A better way from point A to point B existed. Nicole Glenn just knew it.
Glenn found that solution after almost two decades in the logistics industry. In 2017, she founded Candor Expedite, with a goal obvious in the company name.
“The whole purpose of the company was to bring truth and transparency to the logistics game,” Glenn told Produce Processing. “By then I had 17 or 18 years of operational leadership in logistics. I just saw so much dishonesty, whether it was from a carrier telling where they were and issues that they were having or even people that were talking to customers and telling them situations. Nothing was ever really transparent.”
Candor set out to change that by tailoring time-sensitive shipments to equipment and packaging solutions. The company’s most recent salvo in achieving that goal is the launch of a fully reusable cold chain packaging solution that can be tailored to pallet- and box-sized frozen and refrigerated shipments.
The technology, developed in partnership with European provider Cool Chain, is part of Candor’s new cold chain division, Candor Food Chain, and consolidates deliveries of perishable and dry goods in one truck that supports three different temperatures: frozen, refrigerated and ambient.
The launch represents a deeper move into packaging solutions for a company already recognized as a three-time top woman-owned business by Women in Trucking.
“Our main focus when we started was expedite and ground, “ Glenn said. “We started organically growing into different modes, because our customers really latched onto who we were, the services we were offering, the communication. We then started building out.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Plano, Texas-based Candor, which also offers domestic air freight services as well as first and final mile specialized pickups, saw an opportunity to improve both customer outcomes and sustainability.
“I saw so much waste happening,” Glenn said. “On the refrigerated side, I don’t think people understand that they have different options, so they just go through the traditional methods, and therefore you get a lot of negative outcomes — whether it’s product that doesn’t have the shelf life that you need (or) a box that’s going on a giant tractor trailer that’s all diesel fuel and running the unit to keep it cold.
“I was like, we have to be able to start tailoring the shipment to the equipment and the packaging solution.”
PRECISE PACKAGING
Candor’s customizable boxes include electrically cooled, individual panels that line containers to accommodate various package sizes as well as eliminate the need for dry ice.
“We are utilizing just what we need,” Glenn said. “If one piece is damaged or dirty, we can transition it out. (With dry ice), all that packaging gets used once, and it goes in the trash. This box is made to be reused for up to three years.”
The boxes, available in half-pallet and full pallet sizes, can hold product ranging from 2 liters to 50 liters, Glenn said.
“I can foresee this helping any type of food company,” she said. “There’s really not a box you can’t put inside.”
Candor customers can track the packaging, monitoring the temperature and location of each box via an app. Logistics experts also monitor temperatures and respond to any changes.
“If we’re shipping two or three pallets for a customer, we’re able to let them have that visibility: ‘Hey, this pallet is the exact temperature that you ordered,’ where these other companies will be utilizing one unit and doing these makeshift curtains to keep temperatures kind of segregated,” Glenn said. “This will maintain true integrity throughout the life of the entire transportation. You know you’re putting something in at 34° (and) it never changed from 34°.”
The solution can benefit larger customers who currently send up to three trucks a day — frozen, fresh and dry — to a store, Glenn said. Product cooled in Candor’s boxes can be packed along with other goods instead of requiring their own refrigerated transport.
“When you think about a company that’s making multiple stops … I’m in Dallas, and it’s hot as Hades here in the summertime,” Glenn said. “They have to open those doors every single time to make those deliveries, and that product is ultimately getting that blast of heat. With this solution, we can maintain that temp.”
The boxes are essentially rented by customers: Candor ships produce, for example, from a facility in pre-cooled packaging, picks up the boxes, cleans and conditions them, and puts them back into circulation.
“No one’s ever going to throw raw lettuce in there. It’s always going to be boxed,” Glenn said. “That way our boxes can keep their integrity and we’re not concerned, after we clean them, that there could be any contamination.”
ENTERPRISING FUTURE
Candor, which also has offices in Joliet, Illinois and Kansas City, Kansas, currently operates a ship-and-return facility in Dallas, with plans to add locations in Orlando, Miami, Seattle and Chicago, Glenn said.
“Before the end of 2024, we’re going to have seven different locations across the country,” Glenn said. “We’ll just keep building out to all the major metros, allowing us to have the flexibility and reducing those legs of transportation.”
Candor has drawn interest from some large companies, Glenn said, with one of the packaging manufacturers signing on as an investor.
“If we have a strong business base and some great customers under our belt, that funding will come even easier,” she said. “Over time, it will become more and more cost-effective and more and more sustainable. We just have to keep building out that network of customers.”
If that sounds ambitious, that’s just fine with Glenn: “I have some pretty big, audacious goals,” she said.
She talks about those goals and other subjects on the Ladies Leadership Coalition podcast she’s hosted for three years with five other women who own logistics businesses and regularly serves as a conference keynote speaker.
“I get emails from women that say, ‘Hey I just wanted to let you know that I asked for that promotion (after) your speaking engagement,’” Glenn said. “If I can do that — if I can get one person to make an impact on their life — then hell yeah. It’s so cool.”
