As summer draws closer, many consumers daydream of sitting by the pool with a drink in hand, and that’s exactly what those in the beverage industry are daydreaming of too. Coming into the summer season, the beverage industry sees what has been deemed “the 100 days of summer” on the horizon. “The nature of the beverage industry is very seasonal,” says Ned Bauhof, principal and vice president of York, Pa.-based Precision Distribution Consulting In, (PDC). “[During] the ‘100 days of summer,’ from Memorial Day to Labor Day, there’s a large amount of inventory, because for most of the world, it’s the summer season when people are consuming more beverages.”
These few months can make up a significant amount of a beverage company’s sales, so there often is significant preparation in the few months preceding the season, including production efforts to increase inventory, sometimes beyond their own warehouse capacities, Bauhof says. However, this means that beverage-makers need to figure out how to store all of this extra inventory, he notes. In order to best manage the additional summertime inventory, several beverage companies turn to third-party storage options, he says.