AB World Foods claimed the title of UK Grand Champions in the The Fresh Connection supply chain simulation competition run by leading logistics consultancy SCALA.
The company’s Juiced in Time team beat 10 other entrants from a range of top UK companies, including previous winners Mondelez International and Unilever, Kimberly Clark Corporation, Collect+, DHL and XPO Logistics (formerly Norbert Dentressengle).
As well as claiming the crown of UK Champions, AB World Foods were also named Top Manufacturer in the UK final held at Whittlebury Hall, with XPO Logistics’ Quadra team claiming the title of Top Service Provider.
Mondelez International didn’t leave empty handed, however, and their Zestedelez team won the award of Customer Service Champions for delivering the highest service levels to their retail customers.
Another company with a pedigree of winning the competition is Kimberly Clark Corporation and their KCC EMEA United team also won honours by claiming the Supply Chain Planning Champion prize for accurately calculating their return on investment.
The Fresh Connection is a global professional challenge, with an exciting and practical application of concepts such as supply chain strategy, functional alignment, transport collaboration, product segmentation and forecasting.
The global event is run by Dutch company Inchainge and their Education Director Stefan Hoogervorst attended the UK final and commented: “The atmosphere was really good and competitive – and the winner was in doubt until the final round was calculated!”
He added that AB World Foods may just stand the best chance yet of a UK team claiming the global title. “The Juiced in Time achieved a striking 61.03% Return on Investment in the last round and finished with 44.48% overall. This score is one of the top scores around the globe, so they stand a very good chance in the Global Final.”
But he warned: “The race is not won yet, alignement, flexibilty and out of the box thinking will be required until to the very last minute in The Fresh Connection competition.”
The UK competition is run by SCALA Consulting, partnering with Toyota MHE and in association with the Food Storage and Distribution Federation and the Chartered Institute of Logistics.
Teams have to steer a failing juice manufacturing company through a series of real-world business challenges – such as dealing with the effects of earthquakes, staffing strikes, product defects and penalties for CO2 emissions.
The UK champions will now fly to Amsterdam to compete against the top teams from around the world. The winning team at the Global Finals will earn a place on a prestigious executive course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, USA.