Greenway Farms

The Challenge

Founded in 2003 by Noah Barnes, Greenway Farms has been dedicated to delivering the best quality fresh farm produce and meat directly from their family-owned farms to customers’ doorsteps in Boulder, Colorado. Well-known for their fresh items, they offer a wide variety of fresh produce and meat with a commitment to sustainability and organic farming.

With a surge in demand for organic produce, Greenway Farms experienced a significant increase in daily orders, with customers increasingly expecting faster deliveries. This surge, which included a 50% increase in orders over the past year, placed immense pressure on their team to plan and optimize delivery routes manually. Used to rely on traditional methods like paper-based planning and Google Maps for navigation, they faced growing challenges in maintaining efficiency.

The manual route planning led to longer delivery times and increased fuel consumption, which not only contradicted their environmental values but also strained their operational costs. This inefficiency hindered their ability to expand their customer base as managing more complex delivery schedules became increasingly unfeasible.

A critical issue for Greenway Farms was maintaining the freshness of their farm-produced items and meat. The extended delivery routes began to compromise the quality of their fresh organic product delivery, directly impacting their brand promise of delivering farm-fresh products. Additionally, the team struggled to prioritize deliveries based on the perishability of different products, often leading to wastage and customer dissatisfaction.

Another significant challenge was the lack of effective communication with customers regarding delivery statuses, leading to uncertainty and a decrease in customer trust. This number of challenges highlighted an instant need for an innovative solution to streamline their delivery routing operations, ensuring efficiency, sustainability, and customer satisfaction remained at the heart of Greenway Farms.

The Solution

To face the challenges while managing orders and ensuring timely deliveries, Noah Barnes, the owner of Greenway Farms, decided to find an innovative technological solution. He was looking for a solution that would automate the entire spectrum of routing operations – from planning and optimization to tracking.

After researching various options, Noah decided to try Upper route optimization software by signing up for a free trial. Impressed by the features during a free trial, Greenway Farms and its team fully integrated Upper into their daily operations, such as route planning, optimization, scheduling, and tracking.

Importing Hundreds of Addresses from Spreadsheet

Managing hundreds of addresses and other important data is not child’s play. But thanks to Upper’s importing feature, it imports addresses directly from spreadsheets, Excel, and CSV files. This functionality has transformed what used to be hours of manual data entry into a process of mere moments, significantly enhancing operational efficiency.

An added advantage is the feature’s ability to categorize uploaded addresses as ‘Verified,’ ‘Need to review,’ or ‘Duplicate,’ streamlining the process further by reducing the need for manual address verification.

This feature is particularly crucial for a farm-to-table service like Greenway Farms, where the accuracy and organization of customer data directly impact the freshness and timely delivery of produce. With functionalities such as drag-and-drop and custom fields, Noah Barnes and his team have the flexibility to tailor the data to meet the unique demands of their delivery routes.

This level of customization is invaluable for efficiently managing the high volume of deliveries that come with serving a community eager for fresh, locally sourced produce. Not only this, but we also provide an API connection to connect his online farm store to Upper to get all his customers’ orders and deliveries. This feature helped his team say goodbye to manual efforts and the data entry work of adding customers’ data.

Efficiently Planning Routes to Save Manual Efforts

In the world of local farm deliveries, where the fresh produce of the farm is imperishable, efficient route planning became a cornerstone of Greenway Farms’ operations.

Using Upper, the team started planning routes with varying priorities like low, medium, high, or crucial based on the perishability of the products and weather conditions. This prioritization was particularly effective in ensuring that items susceptible to spoilage in extreme temperatures were delivered promptly.

Furthermore, Upper’s route planning capabilities allowed for deliveries to be scheduled according to customer preferences, significantly enhancing customer satisfaction. This tailored approach not only meet customer needs more effectively but also streamlined the drivers’ routes.

As a result, the need for multiple trips was drastically reduced, leading to a decrease in driver idling time and virtually eliminating missed deliveries. This operational efficiency not only saved time but also aligned with Greenway Farms’ commitment to sustainability by reducing fuel consumption and fresh home delivery of organic farm food.

Optimizing Routes in a Few Minutes For Planned Deliveries

At Greenway Farms, Noah and his team count on the route optimization feature as it revolutionized their approach to managing deliveries. The team optimizes weekly delivery routes in just a few minutes, ensuring that drivers take the most efficient paths for timely deliveries. When delivering veggies and seasonal fruits, you make sure to deliver on time to maintain the freshness of the produce. So, Upper has changed the game for Greenway Farms.

The implementation of this feature has brought significant benefits, like reducing fuel costs and lowering maintenance expenses. The functionality to swap routes between drivers allows the team to adapt quickly to unforeseen circumstances, such as a driver’s sudden unavailability, ensuring that their delivery service remains consistent and reliable.

Real-time Updates and Notifications to Customers for Enhanced Farm-to-Table Experience

At Greenway Farms, real-time updates and notifications to customers have become an integral part of their service. This feature, which sends updates and Estimated Times of Arrival (ETAs) through text messages, plays a pivotal role in keeping customers informed about the status of their orders. For a farm-to-table service where freshness and timely delivery are key, this level of communication is invaluable.

Noah Barnes and his team have found that providing customers with real-time information about their deliveries significantly increases the overall service experience. Customers appreciate being kept in the loop, especially when anticipating the arrival of fresh, locally sourced produce. This transparency is crucial in a service where timing and product quality are closely intertwined. Moreover, this feature has transformed the way Greenway Farms interacts with its clients.

The Impact

Implementing Upper Route Planner at Greenway Farms has has not been less than transformative. The software transformed all our operations from manual and complex routing processes to automated processes. The adoption of Upper software led to a remarkable improvement in route planning and optimization, reducing the time-consuming and manual process of route planning.

As a result, the team achieved substantial time savings and improved coordination in the farm fresh food delivery routes. This efficiency enabled them to cover larger areas, effectively meeting the increased demand for farm-to-table food delivery. Furthermore, the optimized routes and streamlined scheduling system minimized unnecessary travel, enhancing operational productivity and allowing Greenway Farms to expand its customer base.

Perhaps most notably, the adoption of Upper’s system brought a notable improvement in customer service. The automated notifications and real-time updates provided much-needed transparency and reassurance to customers, significantly reducing inquiries and elevating satisfaction levels.

Overall, the integration of Upper Route Planner marked a pivotal moment for Greenway Farms, enabling them to fully embrace digital transformation in their fresh organic produce delivery, leading to expanded business capacity, improved operational efficiency, and heightened customer satisfaction.