Spring into Action with Crate Rental this Easter
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When you’ve just about recovered from Christmas and New Year, Valentine’s Day is fading into the background and you think you’re on the home straight to summer, up pops Easter! And like the Easter Bunny, you’re never quite sure where you’ll find it.
As a moveable feast, whose date changes every year, Easter presents a bit more of a challenge for retailers and suppliers, than other annual holidays. Like Christmas, there’s a big focus on food with chocolate, roast lamb, spring vegetables, hot crossed buns and more chocolate all round, so the pressure is on to meet demand wherever and whenever it is.
Getting products to market safely and storing them without risk of damage is something that has to be planned. It’s a good job that phs Teacrate is here to supply RTP (Returnable Transit Packaging) at the drop of a hat, or should that be Easter bonnet?
On your Marks
Other seasonal events, like the summer holidays and Christmas/New Year celebrations take place over the space of weeks or months, while Easter takes place over a single long weekend. However, with many of us off work and the kids on school break, there’s still plenty of opportunity to eat, drink and be merry, despite the relatively small window of opportunity to hit the market with the right products.
Whether it’s at home or in a restaurant, the feel-good factor of a bit of extra leisure time means that shoppers intend to spend around 42% more at Easter so retailers and suppliers have to be ready to react quickly to take advantage of the buyers’ increased willingness to spend for this short period.
But spend on what? While you can be fairly sure that in December the weather is poor – with warming mulled wine, hot chocolate and pulled pork always being a hit - the moving date for Easter presents another dilemma – the weather! We just can’t be certain that the weather won’t be glorious. With Easter falling on the 12th of April this year, and the weather having such an effect on how we all shop, as well as the availability of fresh products, food retailers need to be ready for anything. Will we be cracking open the BBQ or tucking into a hearty stew?
One thing’s for certain, whatever the weather, we’ll be knee deep in chocolate.
Ensuring that your business has the capacity and reaction times to deal with whatever Easter throws at us this year is something that you can plan for well ahead by retaining the services of a flexible, efficient and responsive packaging supplier, such as phs Teacrate. This will allow you to concentrate on your products and customer relations, leaving crate supply in our expert hands.
Get Set
It’s not just the speed of supply and quantity of transit packaging that’s important, quality and practicality are also significant. Pressure to use less individual product packaging means that more care needs to be taken with fragile Easter products, such as Easter eggs, cakes and baked goods and with demand for recyclable cardboard at a low, reusable plastic crates are an ideal, green alternative to cardboard boxes.
Rigid plastic crates, trays and pallets provide excellent protection for fresh and frozen contents. They won’t get soggy when stored in a chilled or frozen environment, and can be easily and safely stacked whether in use or not. They can be washed to food hygiene standards at one of phs Teacrate’s state-of-the-art facilities, and as they aren’t made from fibrous materials, such as wood or cardboard, there is no risk of contamination from fibres or splinters. In fact, we swab test our RTP periodically and randomly, with results being logged and made available to you, our customer, to support your legal hygiene obligations.
Integrated handles and lids allow plastic crates and trays to be moved easily while open sides mean that you can often identify the contents at a glance. All of these properties ensure that products will arrive undamaged at their point of sale, ready to delight your customers this Easter.
So, if the weather is good to us and we have to dust off our garden furniture and plan a few days out, you’ll be able to get your BBQ and picnic products to market a little easier. And if the snow begins to fall (as it threatened to do at Easter 2018) we’ll be ready to help with RTP to transport meat joints, winter veg and other comfort food. Either way, phs Teacrate will be waiting in the wings to assist with all that chocolate!
Go!
phs Teacrate can supply a wide range of food crates and accessories to help get your products to market on time and in great condition. From standard and deep food trays with skates to allow easy manoeuvring; to hygienic and ventilated pallets and boxes that can be secured during transit using our stretch wrap that will also protect against damp and dust.
Delivering crates, trays and pallets to your site or that of your customers is made easy by phs Teacrate’s fleet of vehicles and strategically located, as and when you need them, to the location of your choice. For your convenience, we’ll also collect used RTP from any destination, making your logistics a little easier at this busy time of year. And when you’re not so busy, we’ll even store your crates for you.
Easter is on the horizon, and although phs Teacrate can’t predict the weather or the sales trends, we can help you spring into action if you need to get your products to site quickly and safely. Get in touch now to discuss how we can help your business to successfully tackle Easter.