Delivering the Standard in Perishable Goods: Liaison

View This Article in BOSS Magazine

Liaison Can./U.S. Logistics Inc.’s fleet of refrigerated trucks is dominating the perishable goods market and leading with the pharma industry.

“Thirty years in business is a milestone for Can-US. It’s been a long road, we’ve been around the block, and we’ve changed our perspectives over the years. And throughout that, there has been one component that has kept us on a successful path: Liaison values, to the highest regard, its staff.”

George Shoif, the Vice President of Business Development at Liaison Can./U.S. Logistics Inc., knows how to give credit where credit is due. Although much of our conversation with him revolved around new strategies and technologies, he always traced the success of those strategies right back to the company’s employees.

Liaison Can./U.S. Logistics Inc.’s strong decades-long history of transporting goods over the Canadian/U.S. border has led the company to establish a new headquarters in Miami, Florida. With a large investment into technology such as temperature regulated trucks and this new location in the U.S.’s South, Liaison has opened the doors to several new markets in the supply chain and logistics industry.

“We hit profitability just 10 months after establishing our new U.S. headquarters. We came in focused and ready to collaborate, and because of that synergy we’re seeing great success,” said Luis Perez- Codina, Companies VP of Marketing and Commercialization.

Perishable goods make up the majority of the company’s business, and have since it was founded. However, the marketplace is entirely different today. From a time when produce was mostly grown and distributed locally to the farm-to-fork trends of today, the freshness of the product is key as it is shipped further and further from where it’s grown.

“Our technology allows us to cut down on transit time, increase traceability, and continually maintain quality during transit,” shared Pérez-Codina. “Our customers can see the temperature of their shipment, as well as other real-time updates and analytics.”

Recently, Liaison Can./U.S. Logistics Inc. has applied its new technology—specifically its refrigerated fleet—and decades-old technology to a new market: pharmaceuticals. Many medications have to be transported at a very specific temperature. Where perishables might have a five to ten degree wiggle room, depending on the product, some medicines can only be effective if kept in a one or two degree range. With many of the same requirements between perishable goods like food and pharmaceuticals, Liaison had to do surprisingly little before taking on their first pharma contract.

“Medical providers are not expecting a transporter to have these capabilities prior to requesting them,” shared Shoif. “It hasn’t been a hard sell. We’ve approached a few providers to get a foundation in the industry, and the response has been overwhelming. There are a lot of challenges that come with the new marketplace, but we are overcoming them with confidence and determination.”

Liaison’s Miami headquarters has provided the company with a new potential channel for revenue—a fresh produce division. The company is now purchasing and selling fruits sourced from the United States and Latin America. These perishables make their way—via Liaison’s refrigerated trucks, of course—all the way to Montreal.

“When we started to research this as a viable business model for Liaison, we realized that five or six different companies can touch a box of produce before it gets to its final destination. We are eliminating the numbers of handlers. It’s definitely a niche right now. We’re effectively cutting out the middle man.”

This is a perfect reflection of what sets Liaison apart from its competitors—the company has never compared itself to others in the field, and it’s not going to start anytime soon.

“We’ve always measured ourselves to our own standards,” George Shoif said. “We have a business model that works for our customers and that they appreciate. We provide a personal approach on a continual basis, and we’ll continue to see success because of this.”