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Customer Story

Automation as the main ingredient of customs operations

Industry
Food
Country
United Kingdom
Upfield customs story image-min

Compliance is one of the main drivers of CAS. We can work on bigger customs projects now since we know our declarations are running in CAS, all automated and fully compliant.

Sophie Lavis
UKI Customs Team Lead, Upfield

About Upfield

Upfield, the future of great-tasting food, is the global leader in plant-based food, driving positive change for both people and the planet in four key categories: Butters and Spreads, Creams, Liquids, and Cheese. Upfield’s iconic brands – including Flora, Becel + ProActiv, Rama, Country Crock, BlueBand, and Violife – as well as dozens of local jewels – are well recognised and enjoyed by consumers all over the world. Upfield’s investment in R&D allows it to constantly push boundaries, with more than 150 Upfield food scientists and specialists working at its state-of-the-art Wageningen Food Science Centre in the Netherlands. Upfield’s brands are made in 14 manufacturing sites and shared across 90 countries. Upfield’s purpose - to make people healthier and happier, with nutritious and delicious, natural, plant-based food that is good for you and our planet - is at the heart of every decision it makes.

 

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The pressure of Brexit

Prior to Brexit, UK companies did not have to deal with customs procedures. At that time, 95% of Upfield's production manufacturing plants for UK products were located in the EU. However, Brexit changed the landscape, and UK companies needed to take action. Through their own admission, they were late to the party and there was quite a lot of concern internally as customs operations now came into play, something UK teams had never dealt with before. Thankfully, as a global company, Upfield teams across Europe were able to provide guidance and structure during the customs changes.

“Learning about the challenges involved in arranging timely transport, securing adequate budgets, and ensuring legal compliance gave us pause and highlighted the complexity of the task ahead.” said Sophie Lavis, UKI Customs Team Lead at Upfield.

The push for customs automation

As the Brexit date approached, Upfield needed to find a way to handle the new requirements. They teamed up with a consultant and approached C4T, which marked the beginning of our journey together. Within 4 months, Upfield fully automated their imports into and exports out of the UK and Ireland, as well as their exports from Germany. Additionally, they retroactively upload Polish customs declarations, as direct integration with Polish customs is not yet available. This hybrid approach enables them to capture the entirety of their customs operations in CAS, serving as a single centralised platform.

“Before CAS, 70% of our customs processes were manual. After switching to using C4T’s customs management solution, we have been able to make huge improvements, where now more than 90% is automated.” said Sophie Lavis, UKI Customs Team Lead at Upfield.

Brexit served as a wake-up call for many companies as it highlighted the importance of customs. Their biggest challenge was getting people to recognise that customs involves more than just creating customs declarations and to understand that the cost of non-compliance to the business is enormous!

“Compliance is one of the main drivers of CAS. We can work on bigger customs projects now since we know our declarations are running in CAS, all automated and fully compliant.” said Sophie Lavis, UKI Customs Team Lead at Upfield.

The implementation journey

At the start of the implementation process, Upfield did not yet have the resources to implement API integration. As a result, they began by manually ingesting data and uploading Excel files. This approach provided the flexibility needed to start using CAS immediately and gradually automate more processes over time.

Upfield is utilising the modular, ‘land-and-expand’ approach to CAS, starting with a few flows, then expanding to more flows and countries, and incorporating additional automation possibilities when the time is right and resources are available. Recently, Upfield automated their Master Data integration from SAP into CAS.

“The implementation was real teamwork. Although it was complex at times, it was completely painless. You could feel that both Upfield and C4T teams were super involved and committed. Every time one of our test scenarios worked, I celebrated, as it was bringing us a bit closer to our automation goal piece by piece.” said Sophie Lavis, UKI Customs Team Lead at Upfield.

“We could always reach out to anyone on the team in case of questions. There was an incredible amount of support along the way. The collaboration assured us not to be daunted and to trust the process. We love the human approach of every C4Ter we have interacted with so far.” said Sophie Lavis, UKI Customs Team Lead at Upfield.

The result

Upfield previously relied on brokers for their German flows, with a turnaround time of up to approximately 24 hours per declaration. They couldn’t rely on the brokers’ availability, especially outside standard working hours. With CAS, the average turnaround time for a declaration, from the SAP trigger to the export and even import of goods, is about 22 minutes – this is 65 times faster!

“CAS is not only a huge time-saver. Over the years, using CAS, our costs have dropped massively. By replacing the use of customs brokers with the CAS system, we realise 46% cost savings every year.” said Sophie Lavis, UKI Customs Team Lead at Upfield.

Lately, customs authorities have requested numerous document controls at the port of Dublin. With CAS, Upfield can complete these controls in about 10 minutes, compared to the previous average of 10 working days. CAS enables Upfield to easily pinpoint issues and resolve them swiftly, ensuring that the logistics flow remains uninterrupted.

When asked about the main advantage of CAS, Upfield cited 'centralisation' and 'transparency'. They use CAS to lodge customs declarations in multiple countries and involve people with varying levels of customs knowledge. "CAS turns a very complex process into an intuitive, easy-to-use, always accessible workflow." With all declarations accessible in a single system, Upfield can also automatically generate reports from CAS. They no longer need to build reports from scratch, collect data from multiple sources, or dedicate a full-time employee to this task. With CAS, it's a push of a button, and the report is ready, whether it's weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually. Obviously, the 46% cost savings Upfield realises with CAS year after year is a huge advantage as well, freeing up budgets to focus on other customs related projects.

“I cannot imagine a customs life without CAS anymore. It has been pivotal in my job”. said Sophie Lavis, UKI Customs Team Lead at Upfield.

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The future of customs at Upfield

Incorporating automation as the cornerstone of Upfield’s customs operations has not only helped them navigate the challenges presented by Brexit but has also transformed its approach to customs management. With CAS by their side, Upfield has streamlined processes, enhanced compliance, and achieved significant cost savings. Looking ahead, they are committed to continuing this journey of innovation and efficiency, ensuring their customs operations remain agile, compliant, and seamlessly integrated across borders. Furthermore, Upfield is exploring the incorporation of Returned Goods Relief into their operations. They are also planning to expand their use of CAS functionalities to include countries such as Poland and Switzerland, as soon as these countries have been added to CAS’ country scope.

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CAS is not only a huge time-saver. Over the years, using CAS, our costs have dropped massively. By replacing the use of customs brokers with the CAS system, we realise 46% cost savings every year.

Sophie Lavis
UKI Customs Team Lead, Upfield
Discover more

Accelerate with CAS

Designed to simplify customs management for organisations, CAS is a comprehensive solution that automates customs and trade compliance processes. Start with the functionality that will provide your company with the most immediate automation, value and add-on modules as you grow to optimise your customs operations.

Single message, double filing

Single message, double filing

With one single message, CAS simultaneously files an export declaration from the country of departure and an import declaration in the country of destination, combined with transit to ensure frictionless border crossing.
Compliance

Compliance

Legal content is natively included and constantly updated, future-proofing your customs management from changes in legislation. Global and country-specific legal content is available and kept up to date in CAS to feed the different modules based on legal provisions, tariff and tariff measures such as TARIC codes, duty rates, declaration codes etc.
Special Procedures

Special Procedures

Take advantage of special duty regimes that allow you to store, temporarily use, process, or repair your goods and get either suspension, partial or complete relief from import duty. The use of automated Customs Special Procedures can be beneficial for companies dealing with processing, distribution, and other manufacturing activities that are subject to high duty rates.

Single message, double filing

Single message, double filing

With one single message, CAS simultaneously files an export declaration from the country of departure and an import declaration in the country of destination, combined with transit to ensure frictionless border crossing.
Compliance

Compliance

Legal content is natively included and constantly updated, future-proofing your customs management from changes in legislation. Global and country-specific legal content is available and kept up to date in CAS to feed the different modules based on legal provisions, tariff and tariff measures such as TARIC codes, duty rates, declaration codes etc.
Special Procedures

Special Procedures

Take advantage of special duty regimes that allow you to store, temporarily use, process, or repair your goods and get either suspension, partial or complete relief from import duty. The use of automated Customs Special Procedures can be beneficial for companies dealing with processing, distribution, and other manufacturing activities that are subject to high duty rates.

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