Huntington’s patented XDS™ product retains temperature and product integrity for cold chain transportation, a proprietary solution that can maintain temperatures below -7oC, proven to extend product integrity for five to 12 days. The performance of our qualified shippers is mission-critical for biopharmaceutical and food and beverage customers, as a single temperature failure in the supply chain could render the sensitive product as useless. Our products are currently used to ship blood, tissue, organs, medicines, meal kits, fresh foods, and a variety of other products.
XDS™ is an ‘off-the-shelf’ product that is readily available in several sizes and configurations across our North American locations.
We also offer market-leading engineering and testing capabilities and can design or replicate custom-moulded cold chain transportation solutions from biologics shippers to fish boxes.
Victoria Smith: Tell me about your background – what do you feel you brought to the company from your previous experience that has helped with its success?
Travis Waters, Vice President of Sales and Engineering: My education is in chemical engineering and business finance, but my work experience consists of more than ten years in operations leadership and 18 years in sales leadership for large multinational companies. Personally, I like to build business segments, implement sales processes, and commercialise new products and markets. Huntington is at the earlier stages of the growth curve and has an expansive growth plan, and I wanted to be a part of that. Huntington approached me to help round out their leadership team and use my background to lead the marketing, sales, and engineering teams as we continue to grow the company into one of the leading providers of custom foam solutions in North America.
VS: Since Huntington Solutions was established, how do you feel it has adapted as a company over time? Has it needed to continually adapt to meet the growing demands of food and drinks, as well as pharmaceutical industries?
TW: The company has a long history of providing custom protective packaging solutions and OEM components for the automotive and appliance industries, and now has become a leader in the cold chain thermal packaging industry in a relatively short period of time. We have acquired two new sites focused on cold chain with an expansive customer list and product breadth, and are expanding our capabilities in this segment across all of our North American locations to provide customers with the solutions needed. Our facilities are strategically located to provide nationwide coverage and serve large, multi-facility customers. We engineer solutions for customers across various end markets as a solutions provider rather than a manufacturer of commodity goods.
VS: What would you say really sets you aside from your competitors? What can you provide that no other company can?
TW: Coming from the largest national distributor in the electrical industry, I have always said that three things are vital to becoming a leading national distributor – footprint, product breadth, and national accounts resources. Our growing footprint allows us to service national customers with a vast line of qualified thermal shippers, a testing lab to run temperature simulations for various pack-outs, a dedicated sales and customer service team, and a high-quality product line are all benefits of a national cold chain platform. Our Extended Duration Shipper line of products (XDS™) offers the highest quality combination of value-added customer-moulded solutions to fit the market needs. Having a high-quality, standardized line of products with a national footprint allows our customers to leverage our capabilities and reduce their supplier base. Our footprint provides a structural competitive advantage for both high-volume and low-volume customers nationally, and we have resources with over 30 years of market experience leading the charge.
VS: Do you expect there will be a growth in the cold chain transportation market over the next five years? And what do you think this will mean for the future of your company?
TW: We are continuing to invest heavily into the cold chain market, and forecast significant growth in the next few years as organic market drivers indicate accelerated demand for fresh food delivery, increasing applications across the pharmaceutical industry, and growing popularity of e-commerce. We are also heavily involved in development of the next level of resins and product solutions. Huntington is becoming the preferred supplier to many direct and indirect customers with a national presence in the food and pharma segments, and we are excited about our growth initiatives to become the leading provider of thermal packaging in North America.
