Warp launches temp-controlled division, names Jake McPaul to lead

McPaul left Misfits in May 2021 to join Smallhold as vice president of supply chain. At Smallhold, a mushroom producer focused on using tech and logistics to supply consumers, restaurants and grocery stores, McPaul was tasked with building the company’s first supply chain. That included sourcing raw materials, packing procurement and design, inventory and shipping.

Prior to Misfits Market, McPaul spent more than three years at Blue Apron and also worked at global logistics leader C.H. Robinson.

At Warp, McPaul will be tasked with leading the Fresh Freight division’s operations. Fresh Freight is a new division for Warp and focuses on temperature-controlled transportation and cross-docking solutions within the less-than-truckload market.

“Refrigerated transportation and cross-docking solutions have been a struggle for the last decade that I’ve been in the industry,” McPaul said. “The pandemic exacerbated this. The industry desperately needs a tech-enabled quality temp-controlled LTL network. People have just been too scared to try it because it’s arguably the most difficult problem to solve in the entire logistics industry.”

Warp said it will combine temperature-controlled carriers with separate temperature-controlled storage facilities and crossdocks overlaid with Warp technology to control truck times and increase visibility during every step of the process.

Delivery options will include direct-store deliveries to restaurants, zone skipping or direct-carrier injections into last-mile providers and inbound pickups from farms to manufacturing/production facilities. Warp is able to physically consolidate product at Warp temperature-controlled stations or digitally consolidate perishable goods on trucks for delivery.

“Warp’s willingness to lean into problems like this and reimagine networks that can provide customers with the transparency and flexibility needed in the modern world is what drew me to the company,” McPaul said. “As someone who spent time on both the ‘client side’ as a shipper and service provider at C.H. Robinson, you only need to spend a little time with our team to know you’ll be able to sleep better at night trusting us with your most important freight.”

McPaul will primarily be responsible for providing temp-controlled solutions to the largest perishable shippers in the world. He and his dedicated team will also focus on building out a new temperature-controlled LTL network across the U.S., Warp said.

Warp was founded by Daniel Sokolovsky, who had previously founded AxleHire, and Troy Lester to digitally connect customers to delivery capacity in the middle mile — a critical link in the supply chain that enables last-mile delivery to succeed. The company announced a $2.4 million seed-funding round led by Bee Partners in February.

Click for more Modern Shipper articles by Brian Straight.

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