A drink is assembled, not manufactured in one place. Concentrate, sugar, water treatment chemistry, closures, preforms, labels and cartons all arrive separately and have to be on the filling line in the same hour. The warehouse is the buffer that makes an unreliable set of lead times look reliable to production.
A filling run stops for a missing closure just as fast as for a missing concentrate, even though one costs a hundred times the other. Stock accuracy on the cheap components is worth more than it looks on the rate card.
Concentrates in drums and IBCs, closures in bulk cartons, preforms in octabins, labels on reels. They need different storage decisions and different handling, and a call-off usually asks for several of them at once.
Concentrates, extracts and specialist closures often come from outside the EU. Held under customs warehousing in Zeebrugge and Liège, the duty and import VAT wait until the component is drawn down, which matters when a season of stock is sitting still.
Our Belgian warehousing is certified to the BRCGS Storage and Distribution standard at AA grade, and to ISO 9001. For a beverage producer that is normally what allows a warehouse onto the approved supplier list without their own auditor visiting first.



