Popular Dutch bakery and e-tailer, Taartenwinkel has found a way to sustainably make the complicated e-commerce work while out for delivery.
Located in Utrecht, Netherlands, Taartenwinkel features an entire line of cakes, pastries, and petit fours produced in-house. The bakery innovates to provide clients, personal or businesses, with just about any customization they desire.
Taartenwinkel’s Utrecht bakery is located in the center of the country, which would allow for deliveries without the need of air freight. However, this isn’t as easy, since freshly baked products aren’t shelf-stable, and are delicate items that need to be delivered promptly and gently, all the while maintaining a certain temperature.
The company had previously relied on refrigerated trucks to maintain a cold chain temperature not to exceed 7°C (45°F) upon delivery. But the trucks are not able to provide customers with tracking information, so Eric van Noort, Taartenwinkel’s owner selected courier service PostNL, a central European mail, parcel, and e-commerce delivery corporation, to transport their goods.
After much trial and error, including EPP containers van Noort, along with Ranpack and Recycold Solutions reached the current, entirely recyclable and waste-free packaging format. The Ranpak WrapPak Protector system creates waved paper pads, good at trapping insulating empty space, at programmable sizes and increments.
Taartenwinkel currently uses the Recycold cool packs, the Ranpak WrapPak thermal insulation, and a custom printed corrugated shipper box from local converter Akarton. At the time of pack-out in the Taartenwinkel facility, the cakes are kept at an ambient temperature of 2°C, so that’s the starting point. These cakes exit the facility at 9 p.m. every evening, and most are delivered to their destination by 1 p.m. the following day, if not earlier. The Ranpak and Recycold system successfully maintains the temperature without breaking 7°C, until after 6 p.m.
The entire system is completely recyclable in the Netherlands.
