A Delivery Network for Producers of Fresh Goods

Portobel
Portobel temperature monitor

Problem

The world is heating up and more and more people are getting fresh goods delivered to their door. Companies that sell and ship perishable goods -- whether it's food kits, sushi-grade fish, groceries, boutique ice cream, or fine wine -- lack control over the quality of their goods after they leave the warehouse and make their way to their customers' homes.

Solution

Portobel offers an on-demand delivery fleet that is temperature controlled and monitored with quality control sensors that track heat, light, and shock. To deliver on Portobel's promise of timely, affordable, and temperature controlled delivery, we developed temperature tracking hardware, a weather-predictive route planning system, a delivery driver mobile app, and a customer tracking and reporting dashboard.

With the Portobel app, customers are able to guarantee the quality of their goods throughout their delivery chain.

Portobel dashboard

One of the pain points facing purveyors of fresh goods working in a direct-to-consumer model is the lack of visibility into real time data of their shipments. Portobel shares not only the location of the shipment but also the environmental qualities that may affect the freshness of the delivery. On each route, a Portobel shipper is able to see historical and projected measurements for temperature inside the delivery vehicle as well as external temperatures that may affect the shipment as the route unfolds.

Portobel sensor illustration

The Portobel sensors track important events in addition to temperature that affect goods en route. We are able to alert a shipper if there is a sudden shock to the delivery (for example, it a pallet falls off a forklift) or if a delivery is opened before it reaches its destination. These sensors, along with temperature monitoring, support shipping fine wines cross country with quality and control.

Portobel sensor illustrationPortobel sensor illustration

Reflections

To deliver on our promise of timely, affordable, and temperature controlled delivery, we developed a customer dashboard experience that allows producers to create shipments and track the quality and timeliness of their deliveries.

The customer dashboard was part of a larger suite of connected products. At Portobel, we built, in addition to the customer dashboard, an admin app to manage the delivery tracking sensors, a weather-predictive route planning system, and a mobile app for delivery drivers.