The Mid-Market Squeeze: When You're Too Big for DIY but Too Small for Enterprise
Pacific Cheese hit a familiar wall. The family-owned cheese manufacturer had grown from a California operation into an international network with three domestic production facilities, supplying major retailers and fast-food chains. But their logistics operation couldn't keep up—they'd outgrown self-management but couldn't justify the cost of building an enterprise logistics department.
"When you're small, you can build it yourself. When you're really large, you can buy a TMS, hire analysts, and pay for market intelligence," said Brandon Smith, vice president of operations at Pacific Cheese. "Pacific Cheese was caught in the middle of these two extremes. We'd grown too large and complex to self-manage in a cost-efficient way, but not large enough to justify the cost of all the people and tech to keep doing it in house."
The solution? Partnering with 3PL ITS Logistics for a fully managed logistics program.
What Pacific Cheese Got
ITS built what both companies call "enterprise-level sophistication at scale." The package includes a dedicated managed transportation team, a customized TMS implementation, and a fully managed RFP process that expanded Pacific Cheese's carrier network while improving fraud prevention.
"Mid-market shippers have to work much harder to be cost-efficient than enterprises do, especially when it comes to logistics," explained Jameson Goforth, vice president of final mile and managed solutions at ITS Logistics. "Our goal for Pacific Cheese was to help it adopt a technical, strategic approach without the overhead."
The 3PL Value Proposition
This partnership illustrates a key opportunity for 3PLs: mid-market companies need sophisticated logistics capabilities but can't build them economically in-house. By offering managed solutions, 3PLs can deliver enterprise tools and expertise on a variable cost model—clients only pay for what they use.
For Pacific Cheese, the math worked. With ITS handling their logistics operation, they get access to technology, management expertise, and market intelligence that would cost significantly more to build internally. It's a reminder that the best 3PL partnerships aren't just about warehouse space or transportation—they're about solving the operational challenges that come with growth.
