How to choose a food logistics partner in London.
There is no single best cold-chain courier in London. Choosing a food logistics partner comes down to four questions: who drives your route each week, who covers it when they cannot, what evidence comes back from a delivery, and what the rate actually includes. This page sets out the categories, the criteria that separate providers, the questions to ask and how to score a tender. Fleetable answers all four, and proves it on one route first.
The problem
The pitches are identical. The failures are not.
Ask five London food logistics providers for a proposal and you get five versions of the same page: reliable, temperature-controlled, tracked, competitively priced. Nothing in the pitch separates them, because nothing in a pitch is meant to. The difference turns up at 06:00 on a Tuesday in February, when a driver calls in sick and somebody decides whose round gets covered first — and by then you have signed. So the work at selection is to make each provider produce evidence of the thing that will actually break, before it breaks.
How it works
Proven on one route first
Score the shortlist on evidence rather than on the proposal: what they can show you from a route they already run, what they will commit to in writing with a date on it, and what the rate includes line by line. Then settle it the only way that settles anything — give the top two one route each, run in parallel with your current provider, for a fortnight. Nothing switches, and you choose on your own traffic rather than on somebody's deck.
Honesty
Why there is no league table here.
You came looking for a ranked list of London food couriers. There is not one on this page, and the reason is worth two lines.
A table of rivals written by one of them is marketing dressed as research — whoever builds the table picks the columns, and the columns are always the ones they win. And a published claim about another company, its on-time record, its cover or its accreditation, is stale within a week of being written. That is how a comparison page stops being a service and becomes a liability.
What is here instead is the part that transfers: the four categories a London food operation is really choosing between, ten criteria that separate providers inside a category, ten questions with the shape of a straight answer set against an evasive one, and how to score a tender. Run all of it across your own shortlist. If Fleetable is on that shortlist, put the same questions to us in the same order and hold the answers to the same standard. The narrow version of that argument — your own vans, a courier, or capacity on contract — is set out on why Fleetable.
The categories
Four ways to move food across London.
Check you are comparing inside the right category before you compare anything else. Most bad logistics decisions are category errors that got scored as price differences. The four are compared here on what each is genuinely good at, what it costs you, and when it is the right answer.
Your own vans and drivers
You buy or lease the vehicles, employ the drivers, and run the dispatch yourself.
- Genuinely good at.
- Control, and nobody else to hold responsible. The drivers are your staff, they learn the sites, they answer to your operations manager, and there is no margin on top of the fuel. Where volume is dense and steady enough to keep a vehicle full most days, it is often the cheapest cost per drop anybody can quote you.
- What it costs you.
- The vehicle costs the same standing idle as it does working, and that cost does not stop when the volume does. You also own the parts nobody puts in a business case: cover for the week a driver is off, the MOT, the parking, the insurance renewal, and the manager who spends every Monday morning re-planning a round instead of running the kitchen.
- Choose it when.
- Volume is high, stable and dense, the routes rarely change, and you want the drivers on your own payroll.
A haulier with its own fleet
A contracted logistics company that owns the vehicles and the depots, and sells you space on them.
- Genuinely good at.
- Scale, and the things only scale buys. Depots, night trunking, multi-temperature vehicles, a certificate held on the day you ask for it, and the ability to absorb a peak you did not forecast. If you move pallets nationally, this is the category that does it, and no asset-light model will out-run it on a trunk lane.
- What it costs you.
- You fund the fleet whether or not it moves. That is the honest trade for the depot, and it shows up twice — in the rate, and in how slowly anything changes. A new site or a moved window becomes a change request, and the answer arrives on their release cycle rather than before your next service.
- Choose it when.
- You need national reach, pallet volumes, or a formal accreditation that takes an audit and a renewal to hold.
A same-day or network courier
A network that prices a job, dispatches whoever is nearest, and moves it today.
- Genuinely good at.
- Speed and reach with nothing to sign. One consignment, a price in minutes, national coverage, and no commitment either way. If something has to be in Manchester by 18:00 and it has never happened before, this is the right call and a contract would be the wrong one.
- What it costs you.
- The vehicle and the driver are different each time, so nobody accumulates any knowledge of your sites, and the price moves with the day's demand. It is a different product from contracted logistics rather than a cheaper version of one: a network prices a job, a contract prices a standard. Judge it as a recurring food round and it will disappoint. Judge it as what it is and it is very good.
- Choose it when.
- The job is genuinely one-off, or it is overflow you could not plan for. Fleetable runs urgent same-day work for exactly that reason, and it is priced as a job rather than as a contract.
Contracted capacity, asset-light
A partner that contracts vehicles and drivers to your routes and buys the capacity in rather than owning it. This is what Fleetable is.
- Genuinely good at.
- A set driver on the round with a named backup behind them, capacity agreed in advance rather than bid for on the morning, and the vehicle class chosen for the round rather than taken from what the depot has free. The rate is per mile with every cost shown, and there are no vans on your cost line between runs.
- What it costs you.
- No depot, and no national trunking network. The model earns its keep on recurring London work and is the wrong shape for pallet distribution to Scotland. Because capacity is bought per route rather than parked, a step change in volume tomorrow morning is a conversation rather than an automatic yes.
- Choose it when.
- Recurring London routes, windows that cannot slip, and you want one party accountable without funding a fleet to get it.
The criteria
Ten things that separate one provider from another.
Inside a category, these decide it. Each one asks for something that either exists or does not — a name, a number, a date, a document, a sample.
- Cover. This is the criterion that decides whether you have a supplier or a problem. A late delivery is not late, it is a missed service, and it nearly always starts with one person being off.
Ask for: The name of the second driver, whether they have run this round before, and how the switch is made at 05:00 rather than discovered at 09:00.
- Continuity. A driver who has run your round knows which door, which fridge, and which site will not sign without the paperwork. That knowledge is most of the on-time performance and none of it appears in a proposal.
Ask for: How many different drivers ran a comparable round for them last quarter. A provider who cannot answer is telling you they do not measure it.
- Evidence per drop. A record produced per run is one signature at the end of a morning. A record produced per drop is the one your goods-in team and your finance team can both use, and it is the difference between checking a disputed delivery and arguing about it.
Ask for: One week of real records from a route they already run, with the client's name removed. A provider with a system produces that inside a day.
- Temperature. Chilled, frozen and ambient are three different operations, and a provider who carries all three may not carry them equally well. Retention matters as much as capture: a record nobody can retrieve in six months is not evidence of anything.
Ask for: The bands they carry, in writing. The retention period in months. And who holds the record afterwards — them, or the operator who drove it.
- Accountability. At 06:00 you need a person who can move a vehicle, not a ticket number and a promise about response times.
Ask for: The name and the mobile number of the person who owns your account, and who answers when that person is on leave.
- Price structure. Three quotes on three different bases are three different products, and the gap between them usually hides in the lines nobody itemises: loading, waiting, the empty return leg, and the two London charges. The congestion charge is £18.00 a day and applies to every vehicle in the zone; ULEZ is £12.50 a day and is payable only by a vehicle that misses the emissions standard.
Ask for: The rate basis, the loading and waiting allowance included before anything is billed — 15 minutes each on the Fleetable rate card — how the return leg is charged, and whether the two zone charges are passed through at cost or folded into the mileage.
- Liability. Every provider will tell you the load is covered. The question that separates them is what you could actually recover, and that is set by the conditions the work is carried under rather than by the size of anybody's policy.
Ask for: The named conditions of carriage and the edition, the liability cap per tonne, and whether the cover sits with the company you are contracting or with whoever drives the route.
- Accreditation. In a tender this is a yes or a no on the day of award. A promise to obtain one is a project plan, and a project plan with no date on it is a decline that has not been written down yet.
Ask for: The certificate, its number and its expiry date for anything claimed as held. For anything described as planned, the date it completes.
- Change. Your operation changes more often than your contract does. A partner who treats a new site as a re-price answers in days. One who treats it as a variation answers on its own timetable.
Ask for: The last three changes a client asked for, and how long each one took from request to first delivery.
- Exit. The real cost of a bad choice is not the rate, it is the notice period you cannot leave inside. Read the exit before you read the rate card.
Ask for: The notice period in writing, whether it lengthens after the first year, and what is handed back to you when the contract ends.
Two of those you can check on Fleetable without asking anybody. How a route is priced, line by line, is on the per-mile pricing page, and the liability position is published in full in the conditions of carriage.
The questions
Ten questions, and what a straight answer sounds like.
You already know what to ask. The hard part, from the other side of a table, is telling a real answer from a fluent one.
- Who is driving my route next Tuesday, and who drives it if they are ill?
A straight answer: Two names, and a sentence about whether the second has run the round before. The switch is described as a process with a time on it.
An evasive one: An assurance that cover is available. Availability is not a name, and it gets decided by whoever happens to be free that morning.
- How many different drivers ran a comparable round for you last quarter?
A straight answer: A number, or a straight admission that it is not measured. Both are useful. Only one of them is a surprise later.
An evasive one: A description of their recruitment process, offered instead of the number.
- What does my goods-in team hold after a delivery, and is it per drop or per run?
A straight answer: A redacted sample from a route they already run, rather than a description of one. Per drop, or an honest per run.
An evasive one: A screenshot of a dashboard, and a portal login promised for after go-live. Neither is a record.
- Which temperature bands do you carry, and how long is the record kept?
A straight answer: The bands, in writing, and a retention period stated in months.
An evasive one: Everything, kept as long as required. Neither half of that sentence is a commitment.
- How is the price built, and which costs appear as their own line?
A straight answer: A basis — per mile, per drop or per hour — with loading, waiting, the return leg and any zone charge itemised, and the included allowance stated in minutes.
An evasive one: One number for the round. It is the easiest quote to accept and the hardest to ever check.
- Which conditions of carriage do you work under, and what is the liability cap?
A straight answer: The named conditions, the edition and the cap per tonne, on a page you can read without asking anybody.
An evasive one: A reference to standard industry terms, with the document to follow.
- Which accreditations do you hold today, as opposed to plan to hold?
A straight answer: The ones held, with numbers and dates, and a plain no for the rest.
An evasive one: A list that mixes held, in progress and working towards without marking which is which.
- What happens at 06:00 when a route is running late?
A straight answer: Who notices, who they call, and how long before the site is told. A time, not a value.
An evasive one: An escalation matrix. Ask who is awake at 06:00 to start it.
- Can we run one of our routes in parallel before we commit to anything?
A straight answer: Yes, with a start date. It costs them a route and it is the cheapest evidence you will ever buy.
An evasive one: A pilot conditional on a signed contract, which is not a trial.
- What is the notice period, and what do we get back if we leave?
A straight answer: A period stated in months, and a list of what is returned.
An evasive one: A standard term, to be discussed at contract stage.
Tender
Scoring a food logistics tender.
No weightings are suggested here. A percentage split across evaluation criteria would look precise and be invented, and this page is not going to do to you what it just told you to watch for. What follows is the order to score in, and the mechanics that make two bids comparable at all.
- Normalise the price before you compare anything. Three quotes on three bases are three products. Put each one through the same week of your real routes and read out the same two numbers — cost per mile and cost per drop — with loading, waiting, the return leg and the zone charges shown separately. Most of the apparent spread disappears at this step. What survives it is the real difference.
- Weight cover and continuity above the headline rate. The rate is the thing that fails least often. What fails is the Tuesday somebody is off. Score the cover arrangement, the second named driver and the driver turnover before you score a single penny of price.
- Score evidence, not policy. A policy document is free to write. A week of records from a route already running is not. Award the marks to what a bidder can produce this week, and treat a description of a capability as unscored rather than as a failure — then ask for it again at contract stage.
- Put a date on every commitment. Anything answered as in progress needs a completion date inside the response, signed by somebody. Accreditation, reporting, integration: an undated commitment is a decline that has not been written down.
- Put the trial inside the tender. Award on a parallel route rather than on a document. Shortlist two, give each one route of yours for a fortnight alongside your current provider, and score what comes back. It costs you one route, and it is the only evidence in the whole process generated on your own traffic.
- Read the exit before the price. Notice period, price-review mechanism, and what is handed back at the end. A contract you cannot leave inside a season turns a mediocre choice into a year of them.
Straight answer
Where Fleetable fits, and where it does not.
This page would not be worth much if it dodged its own test.
Where it fits
- Recurring London routes with windows that cannot slip — a set driver on the round and a named backup behind them, week after week.
- Capacity agreed in advance rather than bid for on the morning, so a peak is planned rather than priced at whatever the market does that day.
- A per-mile rate with every cost shown: mileage, loading, waiting, the return leg, and the two London charges passed through at cost on their own lines.
- The liability position published rather than described. Goods move insured on our own cover, the work is carried under RHA Conditions of Carriage 2026, and the cap of £1,300 per tonne is on the conditions of carriage page rather than in a sales call.
- Evidence on your own traffic before a contract exists. We prove it on one route first, in parallel with whoever you use now, and you judge it on your own sites.
Where it does not
- No depot and no national trunking network. Pallet distribution beyond London belongs with a haulier that owns one, and we will say so rather than bid.
- No formal accreditation is named on this site before it is held. Accreditations are added as contracts require, and the trust row further down this page lists whatever is held on the day you read it — including nothing.
- Frozen and ambient work is not stated anywhere on this site, and this page is not going to be the first to state it. Ask, and get the answer before you plan around it.
- On-time-in-full figures published on this site are labelled as samples until they come from an audited report. Treat them as illustrative, exactly as they are labelled.
- Fleetable owns no vans. Routes are run by operators working to Fleetable's contract, and one named contact stays accountable for the route whoever is driving it that week.
Where this page sets a criterion and does not answer it for Fleetable, that is deliberate and it is not a pass. Put the question at the capacity review and you get the answer in writing before you commit — including, where it applies, the answer not yet.
The procurement answers underneath all of this — who actually drives the route, what record comes back, and how accreditation is handled when a tender names one — are set out on compliance and food-safe standards.
The difference
Own vans, a courier, or Fleetable
| What matters | Your own vans | A courier | Fleetable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Set drivers for your routes | Yes | Shared | Yes, committed |
| A backup on every route | Your problem | Rarely | Always — primary and backup |
| Live tracking you can check | Manual | A tracking number | Live, auditable per drop |
| Reports for finance | Manual | No | On time, proof and cost |
| No idle-van cost | You carry it | Yes | Pay for delivery, not idle vans |
Proof
Reliability you can check.
A backup on every route
Primary and backup, always. A sick day never leaves a site short.
Chilled, checked before each job
Food-safe vehicles, kept to temperature the whole route.
Live tracking and proof of delivery
Time and temperature at every drop, with proof your finance team can check.
One named contact
One person who knows your routes — not a call centre.
Drivers checked to your standard. Chilled, food-safe vehicles. Proof at every drop.
Accreditations added as contracts require.
Related
Where to next
FAQ
Questions, answered.
Which cold-chain courier should I use in London?
Does Fleetable publish a comparison against named competitors?
What should a food courier comparison actually measure?
How do we compare quotes that are priced differently?
What is Fleetable not the right answer for?
Can we try it without switching?
How is it priced?
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