For professionals that rely heavily on complex logistics systems—like 98% of the food and beverage industry—there are two words right now that likely create a stomach-churning response: diesel prices.
As nearly all have noticed, diesel prices are higher than they’ve ever been, and the price isn’t coming down. Per the U.S. Energy Information Administration, diesel prices are expected to meet or break record highs through at least Q3 of 2022. One of the places these price highs are felt most strongly? The food and beverage industry.
These rising costs impact margins, pushing producers to raise prices, stoking the irritation of consumers and, ultimately, limiting what additional costs producers are willing to incur. The bottom line? We get it. In an economic environment where consumers are inflation and price-sensitive, adding costs to your balance sheet can only make things worse.
But that’s not always true.
At FlexXray, we’re built to add value to your business. Our goal is to make every inspection job we perform a profit center for you. Here’s how:
Transportation
As of May 2022, we’ve built four inspection facilities across the United States. We’ve positioned these facilities within one day’s drive of major areas of food production. We’re continuing to expand, adding facilities to put every producer in the United States within one day of a FlexXray facility. The proximity of our facilities drives down costs for our customers and enables fast turnaround times on our product inspections.
Distribution & Custody
When we handle product for our customers, we understand that we form an additional component of the chain of custody. Our X-ray inspection teams follow industry best practices, with production-standard temperature and handling controls, and extensive documentation reflecting our inspection findings. If your product is cleared by our team, you don’t need to incur additional transportation cost to bring product back to your facility—we’re equipped to send your product to the next step in your distribution chain.
Rework
Over thousands of inspection jobs, we’ve proven that the cost of FlexXray inspections is nearly always lower than the cost of reworking product internally. When our customers factor in the costs of repurposing production time, labor and equipment to rework product internally—virtually always without a guarantee that internal equipment can find foreign material on a second or third run—FlexXray is the obvious choice for protecting margins.
As the food and beverage manufacturing industry moves through 2022, the influence of fuel prices on transportation costs will continue to impact margins. When you have an issue with foreign material contamination, don’t default to rework or disposal. FlexXray can protect your margins by providing greater efficiencies than rework and provide service nearby that protects your transportation costs.
Have product on hold due to foreign material contamination? Contact FlexXray today.
