Question
What are the advantages and disadvantages of opening up a Louisville warehouse/distribution centre versus shipping via courier from Halifax (within 20 km of Bedford)?
In the late 1990s, Clearwater Fine Foods of Bedford, Nova Scotia, the supplier of live lobsters to many of North America’s finest restaurants, was seriously considering opening a large live-lobster holding facility (with a capacity of 22,500 lobsters) in Louisville, Kentucky. Clearwater was experiencing some difficulties shipping lobsters from Bedford to the United States, because of delays due to paperwork mix-ups, technology interruptions, and customs backlogs. The idea was to truck live lobsters once or twice a week from Bedford to Louisville on special trucks, hold the lobsters in Louisville waiting for customer orders, and then courier them via UPS. Louisville is the main U.S. air hub for UPS.