Award-winning Cook has teamed up with NetDespatch web services to launch a new ready-meal home delivery service. Kent-based Cook was named the Vegetarian Society’s ready meal retailer of the Year and was short-listed in the best takeaway category of BBC Radio 4’s food & farming awards.

Its new web service allows the business to expand nationally and through the website www.cookfood.net, with meals ordered online and delivered to homes throughout the UK. NetDespatch has supplied Velocity Connector which provides integration with Cook's order processing systems, giving Cook a paperless and seamless order-to-delivery solution.

NetDespatch is key to the paperless order and delivery system developed by Cook that feeds web orders to an overnight parcel carrier, enabling next day delivery of frozen meals. The meals are collected by Cook’s local courier, Wilson’s Express, which delivers nationally through the APC parcel network.

Cook’s 18-shop network covers the south-east of England, where the company has gained a cult-following for its top-quality frozen meals, all hand-prepared by its own chefs at Cook’s kitchen in Kent.

“We awarded the national delivery contract to Wilson’s Express and APC because it was the only carrier offering NetDespatch,” said James Walker, IT Manager of Cook. “Without it, the paperwork and administration would have been a nightmare. Now we can expand Cook nationally without having to take on extra staff to deal with orders; NetDespatch has been a really important find for us.”

Customer orders made on the website are sent to NetDespatch web servers, printing consignment labels automatically at the point of despatch and updating APC’s central system. Cook realised that to extend its business nationally would be best served by e-retailing and use of an established next day delivery network.

Cook addressed some key logistical issues early on, such as the delivery of frozen meals. Running its own refrigerated fleet was not a viable option and no carriers offered a nationwide frozen service. Cook discovered special packaging that guaranteed meals would remain frozen for 24 hours and with APC delivering within 24 hours nationwide, the solution has proved to be ideal.

“With speed crucial to the despatch and delivery operation, we had to streamline the order and despatch process and cut out as much paperwork as possible. Through web ordering and NetDespatch integration between the parcel carrier and our own order processing system, we found an instant solution,” said Walker.

Cook customers enter their own address and order details and using Velocity Connector ensures that this is once-only data entry. Details are transferred electronically via NetDespatch to the APC delivery hub system. Jobs are automatically booked into the network with label details sent direct to Cook’s label printers, and manifests by e-mail to Wilson’s Express for collection and other APC regional depots handling deliveries.