Delivering More Than Meals

When a major mapping platform suddenly shut down its route optimization service, GA Foods needed a new meal delivery route optimization solution — fast. RouteSavvy API PLUS stepped in and delivered far more than a stopgap.

GA Foods is not your typical food company. Operating nationally across dozens of states, GA Foods is a family-owned company that specializes in delivering nutritious meals to some of the most vulnerable people: seniors, individuals recently discharged from the hospital, and members of the military community.

For many recipients, a GA Foods delivery is not just a meal — it’s a lifeline. In addition to delivering meals, drivers often go inside homes, put meals in the refrigerator, and check on the welfare of the people they serve. Recipients know their drivers by name. Many of GA Foods’ drivers have been with the company for ten or more years.

With a fleet of more than 50 refrigerated box trucks and vans, GA Foods runs a complex, ever-changing meal delivery operation. Ongoing recipients receive meals daily. Newly discharged hospital patients need meals delivered for a specific time period, and then no longer need the service after recovery. Service areas are shaped by zip codes, demand density, and negotiated contracts. On any given day, a single driver might make 20 stops in a rural Midwestern county or 50 in densely populated New Jersey.

Keeping that operation running efficiently requires powerful meal delivery route optimization — the kind RouteSavvy API PLUS was built to provide.

RouteSavvy API PLUS is the ‘brains’ of our logistics program. It does all the hard work we used to have to do manually — and allows us to concentrate on other things.

Mark Bratanov, GA Foods Director of Engineering & Information Services

For several years, GA Foods relied on Microsoft’s Bing Maps Multi-Itinerary Optimization API (MIO API) for meal delivery route optimization. It worked — but when Microsoft decided to sunset the product, GA Foods received little warning. Essentially, an email arrived: the API would be gone in a matter of weeks.

For a company whose production systems depend on meal delivery route optimization every single day, this was a crisis. GA Foods needed a replacement immediately.

The GA Foods team began evaluating options. They had used OnTerra Systems’ RouteSavvy product years earlier. When they learned that OnTerra Systems had developed RouteSavvy API PLUS specifically to match and exceed the Bing Maps MIO API’s capabilities, the decision was easy.

Once we learned that OnTerra Systems had their own multi-itinerary optimization API product, it was a no-brainer. It was precisely what we needed.

Mark Bratanov, GA Foods Director of Engineering & Information Services

The OnTerra Systems team understood the urgency, provided hands-on support, and helped GA Foods get operational with RouteSavvy API PLUS in short order. What could have been a catastrophic operational disruption became a manageable transition.