“Tive gives us the ability to completely monitor the cargo, both in terms of its condition and how safe it is.”
- Cristian Bonelli, Head of Foreign Trade
Founded in Argentina in 2001, Vitalcan was built on a clear mission: improving pets’ lives through complete nutritional solutions developed, manufactured, and distributed with scientific rigor. As the only company conducting research and the manufacturing of pet food in Argentina, not to mention the first Latin American company to establish an R&D agreement with the National University of the Center of Buenos Aires Province (UNICEN), product quality and integrity are central to its brand.
Yet as Vitalcan expanded across Latin America, traditional shipment tracking was no longer meeting the company’s standards. To protect product quality and strengthen operational control, Vitalcan turned to Tive.
“Sometimes they are surprised because we have so much detail when we call them, since the information captured by Tive is very precise.”
Before adopting Tive, Vitalcan relied solely on carrier-provided GPS. “We had satellite tracking through the transport providers, the truck, or the shipping line, without any type of measurement like we have now with Tive,” explained Cristian Bonelli, Head of Foreign Trade at Vitalcan. While their original tracking devices could record environmental conditions, they lacked real-time visibility into the location and condition of shipments. “The information was downloaded once it reached its final destination,” Bonelli said. “So it provided us with historical data, but it’s not like now with Tive, where you can see what’s happening and react immediately.”
Vitalcan also wanted to protect the conditions and security of their cargo throughout transit. “The alerts we use the most are departure and arrival alerts, humidity alerts, temperature alerts to monitor product life, and for security, shock alerts and light alerts in case the truck doors are opened,” Bonelli explained. “This gives us the ability to completely monitor the cargo, both in terms of its condition and how safe it is.” When an alert is triggered, the team responds immediately. “Once we receive an alert, we immediately contact the transport provider to verify the situation,” Bonelli said. “Sometimes they are surprised because we have so much detail when we call them, since the information captured by Tive is very precise.”
Vitalcan ships extensively across Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, including complex multimodal routes that begin by road, cross borders, and transition to maritime transport. “In terms of maritime transport, we currently work mainly with Ecuador, although the journey begins by land, as it is a multimodal operation via Chile,” Cristian explained. “It is a very complex route, but the monitoring has been excellent.”
The Vitalcan team has configured alerts to trigger at critical checkpoints. “We have alerts at the Los Andes customs point, which allows our customs brokers in both Argentina and Chile to be informed in a timely manner,” Bonelli said. “We also receive proximity confirmations for the port in Chile, followed by alerts when the cargo arrives at the port in Ecuador and again when it is close to our subsidiary.”
“When a truck travels through Chile and enters the terminal, the Tive platform automatically completes the shipment once it reaches its destination, with all recorded data and excursions included, which is truly impressive.”
Beyond visibility, Tive has helped transform Vitalcan’s internal operations. “The biggest value we see is operational efficiency,” Bonelli said. “The Tive platform centralizes all shipment information into one place, which enables different team members to monitor routes in parallel and respond quickly to requests or incidents… without relying on a single person. This results in time savings and reduced reprocessing, and gives us the ability to manage a higher volume of shipments, without increasing the size of the operations team.”
The Tive platform has also helped the team at Vitalcan improve planning and coordination. “Tive has enabled us to begin monitoring long-distance domestic routes that previously had no real-time visibility,” Bonelli explained. “This helps our receiving and operations teams prepare in advance, reduces manual coordination, and avoids improvisation, resulting in more organized management as well as time and operational cost savings.”
