Walden Local Expands Home Delivery With Intelligent Route Optimization

Walden Local is a direct-to-consumer share program that allows individuals to sign up for monthly or bi-monthly deliveries of 100% grass-fed beef, pasture-raised pork, lamb, chicken, and wild-caught fish — raised locally in New England and New York.

The problem: Inefficient routing

Walden Local was using routing software that kept sending their drivers crisscrossing around town. The routes would overlap like spaghetti, and they spent hours manually moving stops around. Fed up, the team at Walden Local went online looking for an alternative and found Routific.

The solution: Forecasting and planning supported by intelligent route planning

Demand Planning Manager Jackie Andrews was hired to plan the routes, manage and optimize the process, and deliver the analytics required to help scale and automate operations at Walden Local.

For the past three years, she’s been able to rely on Routific’s ETAs for accurate route planning.

“Routific takes into account historical traffic, so it builds routes that are more efficient than we could ever build,” Jackie said. With accurate routes, she is now able to forecast driver needs.

“I wanted the ability to look into the future, to have this reliable output,” Jackie said. “Routific enables me to predict how many drivers we need in a day, and how their day is going to look on the road.”

This kind of forecasting and planning enables the team at Walden Local to use their driver resources as efficiently as possible, ensuring they are maximizing their fleet capacity while minimizing driving time and mileage.

Mobile app for drivers

Walden Local’s team of in-house delivery drivers trust the Routific Driver mobile app to stay on track.

“That’s been huge,” Jackie said. “It’s easier for the driver to use instead of typing in all the addresses in Google Maps. They can upload photos after they complete a delivery. There’s a lot more accountability.”

Jackie also relies on Routific to track the drivers’ location live.

“There were times when drivers had to deviate from the planned route due to road closure or other unexpected circumstance,” she said. “With Routific, we can see if the driver is in the wrong place, and get in touch to see what might be going on.”

Route density and expansion

Since the Walden Local team began working with Routific in 2019, they’ve more than doubled the number of drivers on staff and grown from 30 deliveries per route a day, to upwards of 100+ per route in their densest areas.

Density of deliveries has allowed them to lower their cost-per-delivery, and reach farther corners of the northeastern region of the U.S.

“It's worth it for us to send a driver to the tip of the Cape. With density there's leeway,” Jackie said.

Personalized customer service

With a relationship spanning more than three years, Routific stays in touch with Jackie and the Walden Local team on a regular basis with calls and personal one-to-one attention with a dedicated Customer Success Manager.

“The Routific team has really good customer service,” Jackie said. “I’m always feeling connected and I can raise my hand if something doesn't look right. I’ll tell you guys, ‘I wish we could have this feature and to have you guys take that seriously, it makes me feel very special.’”

The mission of Walden Local 

The team at Walden Local is dedicated to their mission of reviving and re-connecting local agricultural economies. Their network of farmers is dedicated to sustainability, for people’s health and for the planet. Routific is proud to support Walden Local’s positive impact on the world, with shorter routes and fewer carbon emissions on every delivery route. To learn more, visit waldenlocalmeat.com.