Crisp saves 13% in overall costs by switching to PTV OptiFlow

A traditional supermarket needs an average of 106 hours to get fresh food onto the consumer's plate. Crisp does it within 20 hours, by eliminating the traditional intermediaries in the food chain. 

"We are a supermarket app for ultra-fresh food with the shortest route from farm to fork," says Laurens Verploegh, analyst & product owner of the delivery proposition at Crisp. "Our proposition is based on two megatrends: the increasing shift of consumers purchasing online and a proven demand for more sustainable, fresher, and seasonal food. We bring our customers convenience, not having to go to the butcher, the baker, and the local market separately. We combined local and seasonal food from 800 small-scale food suppliers all in one app, making better food accessible to the many." 

Through Crisp's app, customers can choose from more than 4,000 products from over 800 suppliers. "Our technology is built to purchase most produce after the customer has ordered, resulting in minimal waste," explains Verploegh. 

Service above costs

After an order is picked at the distribution center, several logistical hubs are used for transferring the ordered goods to the delivery vans. "Thanks to these city hubs, we're closer to our customers, allowing us to use mostly electric vans," Verploegh explains.

Crisp delivers seven days a week and customers are enabled to choose their preferred delivery windows of four, two, and one hour. "We prefer to deliver at the start of the selected window. If a customer selects the 10:00 to 11:00 am window, we send out a service message through WhatsApp when we expect to arrive at 10:55 am. Our customers appreciate the reliability of our service."

20 to 30 minutes of planning time

Since last year, Crisp has been using the PTV OptiFlow route planning system. "To plan our deliveries, we use two types of input: the number of available vehicles and the number of customer orders. Besides that, a driver’s location, availability, volume capacity and the range of an electric van are plotted with all customers, all connected to its unique drop-off address and time slot. With PTV OptiFlow, creating a route plan takes no more than twenty to thirty minutes."

Realistic and reliable planning is required to meet promised delivery times. “Route planning is quite complex. We deliver throughout the country to customers that are located with a 70-30 ratio between urban and countryside. Nevertheless, we manage to deliver more than 97% of the orders on time, delivering within an agreed timeslot of one hour." 

Efficiency increase

Verploegh not only praises the route planning tool but also the expertise of PTV Logistics. "We did not get stuck in theoretical reflections, but simply got to work. Based on a dataset from one day, they made a plan and included suggestions for improving logistical setup in future. "

It took less than a week to implement PTV OptiFlow, resulting in our route planning becoming more efficient, Verploegh: "In the end, we managed to save 11% driving time, 23% kilometers and 13% costs, all while providing the same level of customer service. PTV Logistics has been a reliable partner to meet those objectives while also improving our operations in the way of working. PTV Logistics is more than just a software license; it is a partnership that provides consultancy for all the last-mile route planning challenges we face. "