FOOD & MEALS 3PL
COURIER SERVICES
A pallet of chilled ready meals will not forgive a 3PL that treats it like a box of T-shirts. Get the temperature, the dispatch timing or the date-code rotation wrong and the stock is not late, it is waste.
WHY FOOD & MEAL BRANDS NEED A SPECIALIST 3PL
Food is the least forgiving product category in logistics. Shelf life is short, the cold chain cannot lapse for a single afternoon, and one mislabelled allergen can trigger a recall.
A 3PL that looks fine on a rate card but slips on any of those points is not saving you money, it is holding a liability with your name on it.
At Paragon we run ambient, chilled and frozen zones in the same west London building, with our own fleet handling the final mile, so your food moves through one accountable operation from goods-in to your customer’s door.
THREE TEMPERATURE ZONES
Ambient, chilled and frozen storage under one roof, with continuous monitoring and validated equipment. Your range can include an 18-month ambient sauce and a five-day fresh meal, and both stay in spec without splitting your stock across two providers.
DATE CODES MANAGED
We pick on FEFO, first expiry first out, so the stock closest to its use-by or best-before date ships first. Short-dated lines get flagged before they become a write-off, rather than surfacing the day they expire.
RECALL-READY TRACEABILITY
Every pallet and every order is tracked to its batch and lot code. If a supplier issues a recall, we can tell you which customers received the affected codes within the hour, not by the end of the day.
WHAT YOUR FOOD 3PL COVERS
Outsourcing your logistics only pays off if the 3PL takes the whole job, not the easy half of it. We store the stock, manage the inventory, pick and pack every order and run the delivery on our own vehicles. You send us the products and the orders. We handle everything between goods-in and the doorstep.
Food covers a lot of ground, from a 12-month ambient pantry range to a chilled recipe box with a hard Thursday dispatch deadline. The thread running through our food clients is that the product is perishable, regulated, or both, and they need a partner who treats that as the main event.
24/7 SERVICE
Single orders, multi-item boxes and subscription meal kits, packed with insulated liners and gel packs or dry ice so chilled and frozen product holds temperature through a 24-hour carrier network.
AUDIT TRAILS
A warehouse management system that shows live stock levels, what has shipped and what is running low, with date-code visibility so nothing quietly ages out in the racking.
SAME DAY DELIVERY
Same-day across London and next-day nationwide on Paragon vehicles, with live temperature logging on every run. The driver dropping your product is ours, not a gig courier who has never carried chilled stock.
RELATED SERVICES
A food 3PL contract usually sits alongside the rest of your supply chain. These Paragon services connect directly to it:
- 3PL Services UK: the full third-party logistics offering this page sits within.
- Chilled & Frozen Transportation: temperature-controlled transport and final-mile delivery.
- Storage & Fulfilment: flexible pallet and bin storage with order fulfilment from the same site.
- Frozen Storage Warehouse: dedicated sub-zero storage for frozen ranges.
- Food & Beverage Logistics: temperature-controlled courier service for food and drink consignments.
- Drinks & Beverage 3PL: the sister 3PL service for drinks and beverage brands.
WHAT IS A FOOD 3PL?
A food 3PL is a third-party logistics provider that stores, picks, packs and ships food products for you, with the temperature control and food-safety handling the category demands. Instead of running your own cold store and delivery operation, you hand the physical side to a specialist and keep your attention on the product and the brand.
DO YOU HANDLE CHILLED AND FROZEN FOOD, OR ONLY AMBIENT?
All three. Our west London warehouse has ambient, chilled and frozen zones with continuous temperature monitoring, so a single brand can store its full range with us rather than splitting stock across providers.
HOW DO YOU MANAGE SHELF LIFE AND DATE CODES?
We pick on FEFO, first expiry first out, so stock closest to its use-by or best-before date ships first. The warehouse system tracks date codes at batch level and flags short-dated lines well before they turn into write-offs.
CAN YOU PACK AND SHIP SUBSCRIPTION MEAL KITS AND RECIPE BOXES?
Yes. We handle subscription and recipe box fulfilment, including multi-component kits, insulated packaging and gel packs or dry ice, with dispatch scheduled around your carrier cut-offs so chilled product never sits over a weekend.
WHAT FOOD SAFETY STANDARDS DO YOU WORK TO?
Our food handling follows HACCP-aligned processes, with regular cleaning, trained staff and temperature monitoring across both storage and transport. If your product needs a specific accreditation, tell us at the quote stage and we will confirm what we can support.
DO I HAVE TO COMMIT TO A LONG CONTRACT?
No. We work on rolling agreements with a sensible notice period. Storage and labour flex with your volumes, which matters for food brands carrying a heavy Christmas or seasonal peak.