From cold store to customer: why direct delivery is still the blind spot in distribution
02/07/2026
Every morning, hundreds of vans leave distributors’ warehouses with the right load – or at least the load that was planned. What happens during the route, however, is something only the driver really knows.
A restaurant returns three crates of unordered fish, a delivery note is signed on a sheet of paper that ends up in a drawer, a batch that needs to be traced is not recorded, or returnable equipment left by a previous customer is loaded without documentation. Small events that become discrepancies by the end of the day. By the end of the month, they become costs.
In food distribution with direct delivery, the van is, in effect, a travelling warehouse. But unlike a fixed warehouse, it does not always have a real-time control system.
Headquarters knows what was loaded in the morning, but only finds out what happened during the route when the driver returns, often with incomplete paper documents and a memory that cannot capture every detail of hours of deliveries.
Without digital tools, the traceability of what happens on the van depends on paper and memory.
Every day, part of the margin is lost through micro-losses that no report can systematically capture: undocumented returns, untracked batches, returnable equipment left or collected without being recorded, and signed delivery notes that have not been digitised.
When a customer disputes a delivery due to an incorrect quantity, a missing product or a batch mismatch, the response needs to arrive within hours. Without digital proof of delivery, the dispute is resolved by guesswork, or with a discount that further erodes the margin.
For companies working with fresh and frozen products, there is also a compliance dimension: cold chain, HACCP and supply chain responsibility. An undocumented issue can become a legal risk.
With the.one VAN solution for van sales, every van becomes a mobile control point: the driver records returns, deliveries and payments directly from the device. Proof of delivery is digital and signed on site. Batches and expiry dates are tracked. Headquarters sees everything in real time, without waiting for the driver to return.
The most significant value lies in the ability to intervene while the issue can still be resolved, not the following day.
The van is a mobile warehouse where deliveries, returns, payments and stock movements take place. Without a digital system, head office knows what was loaded before departure but may only be able to reconstruct what happened during the route when the driver returns, increasing the risk of discrepancies and missing information.
Digital proof of delivery records the outcome directly at the customer’s premises. With .one VAN, drivers can manage deliveries, returns and payments from their device and collect signatures on the spot, making information immediately available to head office and simplifying checks in the event of a dispute.
Digital traceability makes it possible to record what happens throughout the delivery route. .one VAN enables drivers to manage deliveries, returns, payments, batches and expiry dates from their device, giving head office an up-to-date view of van activities without waiting for the driver to return.
A direct store delivery solution needs to connect field activities with central systems, .one VAN digitalises the data collected during deliveries and sales, making it available to head office and supporting a structured flow of information between the van and wider business processes.
ROI can be assessed by measuring returns and discrepancies, administrative time, disputes, documentation errors and reconciliation times. Digitalising deliveries and van activities makes previously difficult-to-detect costs visible and enables teams to address issues while they can still be resolved.
