Baobab Consumer Goods: Rebuilding a Regional Distribution Network in 90 Days
Client: Baobab Consumer Goods
A regional FMCG distributor consolidated four inconsistent depot contracts into a single Northstar network and cut rural stockouts by more than half.
Fictional demo client and figures, built to illustrate how Northstar approaches a logistics problem.
01 · The Challenge
Baobab Consumer Goods supplies packaged food and household staples to retail outlets across four regions, but had grown that footprint through four separate regional carriers, each with its own booking process, paperwork and service standard. Transit times on the same lane could vary by two days depending on which carrier picked up the load that week, and there was no single view of where stock actually was. Rural retail partners were stocking out of fast-moving lines an average of five days a month, and Baobab's own commercial team was fielding complaints they had no way to resolve because they couldn't see the shipment either.
The business case for change was straightforward — lost shelf presence was costing more than any carrier consolidation would save — but the operational risk of switching mid-year, during their busiest replenishment season, was what had stalled the decision for two prior planning cycles.
02 · Our Approach
Northstar proposed a phased cutover rather than a single switch date: one region at a time, each running in parallel with the incumbent carrier for two weeks before that region's volume moved over fully. This meant Baobab never had a week with zero coverage on a lane, and any handling issues in the first region could be corrected before the second region cut over.
Behind the scenes, Northstar's regional hub network meant Baobab's stock could be pre-positioned closer to rural drop points instead of routed through a single central warehouse, which was the root cause of the longest transit variances.
03 · Implementation
The rollout ran depot-by-depot over eleven weeks. Each cutover began with a joint route survey with Baobab's regional sales leads to confirm drop points and delivery windows, followed by driver briefings on handling requirements for temperature-sensitive lines. Baobab's order system was connected to Northstar's dispatch platform via a simple EDI feed, so purchase orders created shipment records automatically instead of being re-keyed by hand — the step that had caused most of the previous paperwork delays.
A dedicated account coordinator sat with Baobab's commercial team for the first month of each region's cutover so that any exception could be resolved same-day rather than escalated through a call center queue.
04 · Results
By the end of the eleventh week, all four regions were running on the consolidated network. On-time delivery across the combined network settled at 97.6%, up from an estimated 84% under the fragmented carrier arrangement, and rural stockout incidents dropped by 62% within the first full quarter. Baobab's commercial team now has a single tracking view across every region, which has cut the time spent chasing shipment status by more than half according to their own internal reporting.
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