Managing logistics operations in-house is often the easiest way to ensure that your supply chain feels like an extension of your brand. But that level of control and quality is hard to sustain as a company expands: More volume means more complexity, and many growing companies find themselves looking for alternative, cost-effective solutions to manage that growth.That’s exactly the position leaders at Pacific Cheese found themselves in recently. By 2025, the family-owned natural cheese company had seen its footprint expand from California to an international network of suppliers and customers, including three domestic production facilities. The company supplies cheese products for major retail brands as well as some of the country’s largest fast-food chains.Company leaders needed a better way to manage their supply chain as they scaled operations—so they turned to third-party logistics services provider (3PL) ITS Logistics for help.“When you’re small, you can build it yourself. When you’re really large, you can buy a TMS [transportation management system], hire analysts, and pay for market intelligence,” Brandon Smith, vice president of operations at Pacific Cheese, said in a case study describing the companies’ partnership. “Pacific Cheese was caught in the middle of these two extremes. We’d grown too large and complex to self-manage in a cost-efficient way, but not large enough to justify the cost of all the people and tech to keep doing it in house. With ITS, we get all the benefits but only pay for what we use in technology, management, and thought leadership.”Today, Pacific Cheese utilizes…
