A multi-drop round is where cold-chain discipline gets tested. Every stop means doors open, ambient air in, and another chance for a delivery to go to the wrong place or arrive outside its window. We run this work at scale: for one national redistribution partner alone, around 2,000 deliveries a week across the country.
What a well-run round looks like
We plan rounds around your delivery points, not around our convenience. Drops get sequenced so doors open as few times as possible and the coldest product travels deepest in the load. Each drop gets its own electronic proof of delivery and its own slice of the temperature record, so if one consignee queries their delivery, you can answer for that drop specifically rather than waving at a whole vehicle’s data.
Door discipline matters more here than anywhere else in the cold chain. Air temperature inside a trailer rises within seconds of a door opening; the product, wrapped and palletised, barely moves. We’ve written up why that distinction decides rejection disputes, because on multi-drop work it comes up constantly.
Store-door and RDC on the same round
Some rounds are all store-door: back streets, tail-lifts, a person to find. Others mix in RDC deliveries with booking references and arrival windows measured in minutes. The planning is different for each and we do both daily.
There’s no such thing as a standard round. In central London a route can run 20 to 30 drops because everything is close together (and the traffic makes up for it); in West Wales the same day’s work might be a handful of drops with real distance between them. We match drivers to the work too: city multi-drop and rural trunk-and-drop are different skills, and our drivers have their preferences.
Who uses multi-drop rounds
Wholesalers replenishing their customers, foodservice suppliers delivering to kitchens, and charities moving surplus food to community groups who receive deliveries between other jobs. If your product needs to arrive cold at twenty places rather than one, this is the service built for it.
Temperature capability
| Band | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Frozen | −15°C |
| Chilled | 0°C to +5°C |
| Multi-temperature | Multi-temperature / dual-zone vehicles can carry frozen and chilled on one load. |
Common questions
Does every drop get its own proof of delivery?
How big can a round get?
How do I get a quote?
Chilled. Frozen. Delivered.
Tell us what you need to move and we'll come back with a clear, no-obligation quote.