Logistically Speaking...

Several months ago, we shipped a nine-inch German Chocolate pie to Charlotte, our Director of Publicity and Something-Else-I-Can't-Remember, in New York City.  I've gotten a lot of questions lately about how that pie fared on it's journey to the Big Apple and if we were any closer to being able to ship pie nationwide. While Charlotte reported back that the pie tasted great, she said it didn't handle 1,100 mile journey to Manhattan as well as we hoped it would.  I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say that the little excess wiggle room in the pie box was all the room needed to make a big mess.  It my head (and perhaps in reality), the whole journey went down like this...

Not long after the feedback from Charlotte, Spencer from Worldwide Express happened to email me and ask if we could schedule some time to talk about shipping.  It turns out that Worldwide Express (http://wwex.com) is a "freight shipping company and expert in logistic management services" - which sounds really impressive and I feel now like I can cross off a bucket list item because I know someone in the logistics management business (on a side note - when we get a production facility, I'm going to call it "PJP Logistics" because it wouldn't matter if we were having flour sack races in there, it would sound really impressive as PJP Logistics).

When I said to Spencer that he couldn't help us ship pies because we didn't have the boxes to properly ship them, he took it upon himself to find the company to make us the boxes.  I know, right?  Spencer was automatically fast-tracked to the PJP Inner Circle for caring enough to track us down some sort of box specialist that is local(ish) instead of ignoring us or throwing us to the black hole of the Internet (searching for pie shipping boxes via Google search can, in fact, make you crazy).

So today, a fine gentleman from Pratt Industries walked through the front door of PJP Buttonwood.  Pratt Industries is a 100% recycled packaging distributor with offices all over the United States, including two in the Kansas City area.  Because Spencer had talked to someone at Pratt and that person (Mike) realized he would be in Columbia today for another client, he stopped by to just ask me my thoughts about packaging and get a feel for all my ideas.  (He probably left PJP Buttonwood to drive back to Kansas City and felt like he really needed a nap - because I have A LOT of ideas).

Mike did my favorite thing - he listened to what we felt like what we needed.  He and Spencer just listened to our thoughts about shipping and our thoughts about our anticipated needs.  By the time Mike left with some of our pie tins and pie boxes as samples and an entire page of notes, I was ready to draft him an Elizabeth Browning quality love letter.  He must know the quickest way to my heart is to just listen to me, even when I really think outside of the box (pun not intended, but I'm keeping it because hahahahahaha).

Soon, Mike will be back with prototype boxes and we will start to roll out test shipments to Charlotte and a few others who contacted us as willing to accept a pie shipment in return for pictures and feedback about the condition of the pie upon arrival on the doorstep.  We are all hopeful for a green light on the shipping options by August.  And then, when you ship a pie to someone, well, everyone will be happy about how it arrives...