Specialist components for food production lines

One of our largest clients provides specialist components for food production lines. To maintain the growth of their business, the client required in-depth knowledge about cross trades and how to import from China in the most efficient way.

Initially, the client chose to import from China directly to the UK. However, as the company grew, opportunities to market their products across Europe grew more attractive.

Rather than import everything to the UK, and then re-export products to their European customers, it made sense to import from China directly to their key markets. In addition to ensuring products reached their customers more quickly, it would also allow the client to remove handling and redistribution costs.

While this approach would be more efficient in the long run, importing product directly into multiple European countries – without a subsidiary in each – created a huge administrative burden for the company. The client reached out to K&L Freight to help them navigate the red tape, as we regularly advise growing businesses on how to import from China efficiently.

Our global logistics experts already had the infrastructure in place to support cross trades from China to Europe for other client, making it easy to secure the necessary paperwork and authorisations needed. Once the approval processes were in place, we worked closely with the client – as well as their international customers – to provide supply chain management and customer service support.

The global logistics solution we developed for our client allowed them to focus on the development and growth of their international business. By freeing them from the day to day management of getting product from China to their European customers, the client is able to focus on expanding their market share – while still retaining an overview of orders in progress using K&L Freight’s online tracking tool.

Five years on, nearly 85% of the client’s orders come from customers outside the UK. To import from China directly into Europe has helped the client expand the market for their product – leading to significant growth and profitability, both in the UK and beyond.