Stoli nuts: fresh delivery thanks to Swiss Post logistics
A tough nut to crack
How do you deliver a natural product that can be damaged by heat, time and air? This was the challenge facing Roli Stadelmann, founder of stoli nuts. The answer: production and logistics that work seamlessly together and a tried-and-tested partnership. But let’s start at the beginning.
As we see so often in life, it was a small moment that got things going for Roli. While travelling, he came across a pack of traditionally processed nuts, and his curiosity was soon piqued. Even though they were raw, the nuts tasted much crunchier than anything he’d had before.
Back in Lucerne, Roli began researching and experimenting with nuts himself. Gradually, he developed his own refining process and even managed to top the nuts that had originally inspired him. “No-one else in Europe can match the way we process our nuts”, says Roli.
From a cheese dairy to Google
A cheese dairy and a health food shop just around the corner from Roli’s home were the first to add stoli nuts to their ranges. The nuts were popular and sold out quickly.
“That’s when we realized that this could really work.”
Today, stoli supplies around 200 hotels, 800 offices (including Google and Novartis) and 1,100 independent retailers throughout Switzerland.
Due to rising demand, Roli needed more space and more people. So he moved production to his cousin’s farm and got her entire team on board. While the team processed and packaged the nuts, one of his actor colleagues started calling potential business customers. He acquired up to ten new customers every day. After a year, he had acquired 750 new business customers. “You wouldn’t believe how much time he spent on the phone”, says Roli, still visibly impressed by what his colleague achieved, even ten years later.
When the farm became too small and the team couldn’t keep up with packing the nuts, stoli outsourced packing to the Brändi Foundation and later moved production to Willisau, near the Brändi Foundation’s site. “Short distances”, says Roli.
A partnership that makes things possible
Oxygen and heat can quickly affect the quality of many nuts and natural products. Unsaturated fatty acids in the nuts can react with oxygen and oxidize; heat accelerates this process. It means if nuts are not transported quickly and reliably, they can lose their flavour or even turn rancid. Or, to put it another way: fast and reliable delivery isn’t optional. It’s essential to maintain the high level of quality stoli nuts are known for.
How do you deliver chocolate nuts in temperatures of over 30 degrees? Many chocolatiers avoid shipping chocolate in the summer months for precisely this reason. The heat’s too great a risk for them. Not so for stoli.
Without Swiss Post’s logistics and coordinated collection times, we wouldn’t be able to implement our business model with chocolate nuts at all.
So how does it work? It all comes down to seamless collaboration. After packing, the processed nuts go directly into cold storage. From there, Swiss Post collects the nuts on time every day and transports them overnight, when temperatures are no longer a problem. The parcels are then delivered the next morning.
Only on Fridays is there no collection. If an A Mail item (for parcels: “Priority”) were not delivered until Monday, the risk of loss of quality due to high temperatures would be too great.
That’s why stoli uses Swiss Post’s “collection by agreement” service. A collection solution for SMEs. Parcels are collected directly from companies regularly and within an agreed time slot. Depending on the consignment volume, frequency and time slot, Swiss Post also offers other, more flexible collection solutions.
For us, it’s crucial that collection and delivery times are kept to. It’s the only way we can deliver on our quality promise to customers.
Swiss Post also collects unpackaged nuts directly from cold storage. They are delivered to certain health food stores using Swiss Post’s Dispoboxes and sold without packaging.Robust packaging that not only promises sustainability, but actually delivers it.
Roli describes the collaboration with Swiss Post as “flawless.”
“I feel I’m being individually supported.” Roli is often on the phone to Silvio, his contact at Swiss Post. Any issues are always resolved quickly. And the conversations are usually short. “That’s a good sign”, he says.
Silvio’s always available, and Swiss Post has always had a solution ready for all challenges, including temperatures, the sustainability requirements of health food stores and glass cube containers.
Less admin. More time for crafting.
Since partnering with Swiss Post, queries about delivery status or complaints have become a thing of the past for stoli. “We haven’t lost a single parcel in two years and, above all, we’re saving a lot of time in the back office.” And all this while shipping up to 150 parcels a day.
Less hassle for Roli means more time for what matters most: the nuts. They are refined by hand by women from agricultural and rural areas who are members of the Lucerne Farmers’ Association (LBV). This allows everyone to focus on what they do best: Roli on his business, the country women on refining and Swiss Post on logistics.
What’s his top priority? Quality.
A lot has changed for stoli nuts since the first experiment in a Lucerne kitchen. But one thing hasn’t changed: its commitment to quality.
This ensures customers don’t just receive a parcel containing goods, but an example of the very quality that stoli stands for. Thanks to its valuable partnership with Swiss Post.
