The leaders at US Wine Transport (USWT)—a specialist transporter of wine out of California, Oregon, Washington, and off of the Eastern Seaboard—witnessed persistent challenges related to the long lead times when sending products to the Midwest and Southeast. Wholesalers and distributors in those markets were struggling with inconsistent delivery windows and having to plan as far as eight weeks in advance for consolidated deliveries. USWT’s entire model is built around a regular, weekly, cycle that delivers 52 weeks out of the year to allow their customers in utilizing just-in-time inventory practices.

In addition to consistent lead times, USWT offers over-the-road, refrigerated services with no minimum consolidation on all deliveries. By allowing customers to order in whatever quantities they need for a given delivery, there is an added handling component for the product to be consolidated into pallets for safe shipping. Product integrity is key to USWT’s customer base and their team has a full understanding of the value of the product ordered and the careful handling required to ensure deliveries happen smoothly. Year-round, refrigerated deliveries keep the wine in the ultimate salable condition.
A family-owned business, USWT serves wholesalers and distributors across 21 states from the West Coast and 13 states from the East Coast. Its dedicated team of 18 is heavily invested in the success of every customer and each employee maintains a deep understanding of their operations and needs.

A critical need for USWT’s customer base is to order wine from producers that are small and lack some of the warehousing resources that larger wineries have on hand.

To meet this need, it regularly picks up from small facilities or directly from wineries, allowing those products to be represented in wider markets than if another transportation company was utilized.

“Many clients buy wine in limited quantities to avoid the hassle of expensive inventory management, but with our dependable scheduled delivery, their products arrive the very week after it goes out of stock,” says Randy DeBruyn, president of USWT.

Communication is paramount in all industries and today’s world, it is especially critical when it comes to logistics. USWT prides itself on its regular reporting of order status and that there is always a team member available to answer questions outside of regular reporting. Customers never have to wonder about their orders and can trust that any rising problem will be communicated as quickly as possible.

Delving into its workforce competencies, USWT has built a workplace culture that minimizes attrition rates, which is nearly impossible to achieve in the ever-evolving transportation sector. A consistent workforce translates to reliable service to their customer base and allows them to be nimble when emergencies arise for those customers. They operate on a weekly cycle, but because the team is up to speed, can react to orders that pop up outside of it without placing undue stress on the organization.

“It is always our top priority to get our customers what they need. We will react as quickly as possible to their orders to help them maintain their sales goals,” states DeBruyn.

Substantiating its wine transportation prowess is a customer engagement where a client, who splits their freight between USWT and another vendor, wanted to deliver a few cases of expensive products before Thanksgiving week. Unfortunately, the contemporary vendor failed to meet the deadline for product pick up, which drove the customer to approach USWT for their delivery needs. In this instance, it eliminated the cumbersome transition of freights from the other vendor’s warehouse by picking up the package from their facility and transporting it to Minneapolis within four days.

USWT is poised to remain a robust distribution partner for the wine industry across the Pacific Northwest, California, and the eastern seaboard through its consolidated and tailored transportation services.