MeinFrühstück24 uses xRouten for fast routes and labels

About MeinFrühstück24

When Christof Lang founded the company with his brother more than ten years ago, there was a single location in Marburg where he delivered to the first customers himself. Over time the brothers turned it into a franchise that today counts 24 territories and partners across Germany, Austria and Switzerland — and growing. Every day, customers order not only baked goods and pastries of every kind through the company's own web portal, but also local foods such as honey, eggs, sausage and milk. The offer goes down so well that at weekends in particular, hundreds of families at every location order thousands of items. And to make it more interesting still, everything has to be delivered within a tight window before breakfast.

Route planning takes a lot of time

With logistics on that scale, planning takes a lot of time. The problem is easy to explain but not easy to solve: how do you distribute that many addresses as efficiently as possible among the colleagues delivering them?

Since all the customers have breakfast at more or less the same time, you have an extremely tight schedule to keep to. Every minute counts.

Depending on preference, Google Maps or RouteXL was used for route planning. These tools have been around a long time and are widely used, but they quickly reach their limits.

Even with RouteXL the planning took a long time, because you have to enter and optimise each route individually. It was clear to all the partners early on that something else was needed.

Labels had to be sorted by hand

Once all the routes were planned, another important preparation step remained: labels had to be printed and put into the right order by hand. This matters because every customer receives one or more bags that have to be marked, or have the labels stuck on them.

Since all the customers are distributed across several routes after planning, and the order is no longer the same either, there was no way around matching the labels to the routes manually.

How MeinFrühstück24 uses xRouten

At some point one of our partners found xRouten. Because we hold weekly internal meetings and communicate a lot anyway, word about the programme spread quickly. More and more partners signed up for a trial and convinced themselves of the functionality and the time saved. When almost everyone had signed up to xRouten after a few months and was actively using it, there was regular contact with the team. The problem with the labels came up in those conversations. Fortunately xRouten has an interface that made the labels easy to solve too.

Automating route planning

Now a CSV file with the next day's orders is simply dragged across to xRouten and "Optimise" is clicked. All the important information — drop-off locations, customer names, products and so on — is carried over automatically. What used to take an hour every day is now done in five minutes.

Labels in the right order via the interface

Sorting the labels was another thing that used to take an hour every day. With the xRouten interface, the labels now come out in exactly the right order and can be stuck straight on.

Mobile app for the road

Once all the routes are planned and optimised and the labels printed, the drivers simply open the xRouten mobile app and let it navigate them from customer to customer. Even if someone drops out at short notice or routes are redistributed, anyone can drive the route in record time without knowing the area.

Automatic emails for customers

Another practical aspect of the mobile app is the "proof of delivery" function. Much as with Amazon, customers automatically receive an email once the rolls have been delivered. One click is enough and a smart email goes out complete with photos and details.

The automatic emails make a very good impression on our customers, and we have had far fewer complaints since.

Continuing with xRouten

Christof Lang and the partners at MeinFrühstück24 believe xRouten is an important part of their daily workflow, simply because it saves so much time and hassle.

The team has implemented every feature request of ours in record time so far. We are delighted with such a great working relationship!