Kapiti Foods axes new courier system

One of the nation's main manufacturers of fancy cheeses, Kapiti Fine Foods Ltd has hurriedly axed a new system of couriering its product to customers, just a few days after a big launch.

Kapiti announced this week that it had developed -- with national courier company, Post Haste Ltd -- a hi-tech insulated transfer bag "capable of maintaining product temperature guidelines during all deliveries ... ensuring the quality of products".

But within three days, Kapiti's chief executive, Greg Shearer issued a terse press release announcing the company "will be reverting to its previous system of chilled distribution for all of its cheese products nationally".

The future change will take effect from Tuesday, just one week after an announcement of the move to a courier-based distribution system using the specially-designed insulation bag.

Mr Shearer said that the new system "has not met all of the company's expectations in terms of delivery times".

"This decision has been made in the interests of ensuring that our customers receive the highest quality service," he said, in a public apology for disruption caused by the U-turn.

Two days earlier, Post Haste had announced the bags were so good it was fitting them to 400 courier vehicles. The bags were manufactured in New Zealand of an imported Japanese thermal material, made of foil and polyethylene.

Poste Haste is a mid-level subsidiary of Freightways, which owns a stable of other courier companies, including New Zealand Couriers, Castle Parcels, SUB60 and Security Express, and Kiwi Express, which already works in the point-to-point niche of the express package market.

The national sales and marketing manager for Post Haste, Warwick Mitchell, declined to comment when he was asked what had gone wrong.

- NZPA