Under The Pallet Wrap
by Keith Dupres and Dan Culverhouse
A podcast for anyone who wants to hear how supply chains really work, whether you're just starting out or have spent decades in the industry. Hosted by Keith Dupres and Dan Culverhouse, two operators who between them have worked across logistics, eCommerce, compliance and operations at some of the UK's most recognisable brands for a combined 50+ years. Every episode we pull back the wrapper on the decisions, the trade-offs and the moments that make or break a supply chain, from where it actually begins (earlier than most people think) to who's really responsible when things go wrong. If you're a founder trying to scale, an operator trying to be heard, or someone who's just curious about what happens between the product being made and it landing on a doorstep, this is the podcast for you. Kindly subscribe and join us on this journey.
Episodes
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Episode 25 - The Leadership Blind Spot That Costs Us Great People
In Episode 22 we talked to Nick Fox about life in logistics in the 1980s. This week Keith and Dan talk to Claire Pearson, who has spent more than 30 years in logistics, about her story from the early 1990s to today. Claire started on the transport and warehouse floor of a food distribution...
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Episode 24 - Headache or Opportunity? - International Trade and Customs
Episode 24: Customs Data Starts Long Before the Border (with Sam Richardson) Trade feels harder than it did a couple of years ago, with new charges and new rules on small parcels. It would be easy to give up on selling across borders. This week Keith and Dan talk with Sam Richardson, Commercial…
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Episode 23 - The Customer Is Always Right and 14 Other Supply Chain Myths. Tell Us Where We're Wrong
Our guest couldn’t make it this week, so Keith and Dan did something different: 15 common beliefs about supply chain, tested against what they’ve seen in real operations. Is the customer always right? Does more stock mean better availability? Does automation make an operation more efficient, or...
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Episode 22 - The Wisdom of Clarence - A Novel... About Logistics?! - With Author Nick Fox
Every Warehouse Has a Story. Nick Fox Wrote One Down. This week Keith and Dan are joined by author Nick Fox, who spent his whole career in logistics before turning it into a novel. The Wisdom of Clarence is a satirical comedy set in a supermarket food warehouse where a management team with more...
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Episode 21 - We Picked our Most Influential Books. Then We Spotted a Pattern
Episode 21: We Picked Our Most Influential Books. Then We Spotted a Pattern. This week Keith and Dan swap the usual guest for a look inward: three books each, picked independently, that actually shaped how they lead. Dan's trace a journey from imposter syndrome to self-belief. Keith's trace back…
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Episode 20 - Would You Rather - Supply Chain Edition
Episode 20. We made it to 20, so we're celebrating with a game: Would You Rather, The Supply Chain Edition. No guest this week — just Keith and Dan putting operational dilemmas to each other and seeing where they land. A CEO who understands ops but won't stop interfering, or one who leaves you...
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Episode 19 - Why Supply Chain Needs to Stop Acting Like a Support Function
Supply chain and ops have a reputation problem: seen as the "support function," rarely in the room until something's already gone wrong. This week Keith and Dan are joined by Kevin Boyd, a leadership development consultant who's spent years inside organisations watching exactly why that happens —...
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Episode 18 - Why Commercial and Operations Drive Each Other Mad?
He once helped launch a laptop line — for a fashion brand that had never sold anything electrical — without warning his own warehouse it was coming. It didn't go smoothly, and it changed how he's worked ever since. This week on Under the Pallet Wrap, Keith and Dan are joined by Jalil Rahman…
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Episode 17 - If They Quit Tomorrow, Would Your Business Survive?
If your best person didn't show up tomorrow, what would actually break? In this episode of Under The Pallet Wrap, Keith and Dan tackle succession planning — and the single points of failure hiding inside almost every operation, not just at the top, but in the planner, the supervisor, and the…
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Episode 16 - Growth Is Hurting - Don't Rush The Hire
Most founders start a business because it's fun. At some point, for almost everyone, it stops being fun and starts being a slog — and it's often hard to say exactly when that happened, or why. Keith and Dan talk through the real warning signs: the founder who can't step away for a single day,...
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Episode 15 - Your Stock Is Lying To You (And Your Customers Are Paying The Price)
Your system says you've got the stock. The shelf disagrees. In this episode of Under the Pallet Wrap, Keith and Dan are joined by Phil Wilson from RGIS — 15 years in inventory and supply chain consulting, on top of 20 years before that in senior loss prevention and stock management at Sainsbury's…
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Episode 14 - We Created The Returns Monster - Now What?
Free returns became the default so long ago that most businesses stopped asking whether it should be. In this episode, Helen Baynes joins Keith and Dan to challenge that assumption. Helen's been on the inside of this problem — from the early days of Net-a-Porter, where free returns helped…
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Episode 13 - Before You Invest In AI For Your Supply Chain - Listen to This
You know you should be doing something with AI. You just don't know what. This week Keith and Dan sit down with Vince — building with AI since before ChatGPT existed — for the honest version most people skip: what AI can genuinely do for your operations, where it falls apart no matter how good…
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Episode 12 - Silo Thinking - The Business Killer Nobody Owns
Two supply chain leaders, one honest disagreement: is silo thinking really about structure - departments, hierarchy, org charts - or is it always, underneath, a leadership failure? Keith and Dan trace it through a £60 million warehouse project nearly undone by two teams who never thought to talk…
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Episode 11 - Why The Best Ops Leaders Know When To Trust Their Instincts
Two experienced supply chain operators sit down to ask a real question: what's actually changed in warehouse and logistics leadership — and what hasn't? Keith and Dan trace decision-making from handwritten dispatch notes and gut-feel routing to dashboards, data, and AI, and land on an…
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Episode 10 - Supply Chain Reflections: What We've Learned After 10 Episodes
Ten episodes in. Here's what we know. We didn't set the world on fire. We don't have millions of listeners. And we still don't really know who's listening. But we do know this: supply chain is one of the most interesting, most misunderstood and most important industries in the world — and nobody...
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Episode 9 - Ops Maker or Breaker? - Lifting The Lid On Automation
Should all warehouse operations be automated? It's a question that comes up in almost every conversation about warehouse operations — and the answer is almost always more complicated than the person asking it expects. In this episode, Keith Dupres and Dan Culverhouse dig into the reality behind…
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Episode 8 - Simply Cutting Costs Won't Save your Business (Founders Survival Tips For Testing Times)
When demand drops, most businesses do one thing: cut. Cut marketing. Cut people. Cut costs. Move fast and hope it's enough. In this episode, Keith Dupres and Dan Culverhouse dig into what actually happens when the volume slows down — and why the brands that come out strongest aren't the ones who...
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Episode 7 - More Customers Won’t Save Your Business (You’re Focusing on The Wrong Thing)
You can acquire all the customers you want. If your operation can't support the growth, more customers just means more problems. In this episode, Keith Dupres and Dan Culverhouse get into the conversation most founders aren't having — the one about what's quietly bleeding your business while…
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Episode 6 - Returns: The Silent Margin Destroyer (Are Returns Quietly Destroying Your Margin?)
What Happens to a Return After the Customer Drops It Off? A customer drops off a return. A few days later, a refund lands in their account. Simple, right? Behind that simplicity sits an entire industry most customers never think about. Dan Culverhouse and Keith Dupres pull back the curtain on…
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Episode 5 - Do you know what you are buying? (Brand, trust and the supply chain you never see)
Do you know what you are buying? — Brand, trust and the supply chain you never see Keith bought a Sony TV from Argos. He thought about the South London depot. He thought about Sony. He stopped there. He didn't think about where it was assembled, where the screen came from, the chips, the rare…
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Episode 4 - Getting Out Of The Way
In this episode Keith and Dan confess to being the blocker - the very thing standing in the way of their own teams and projects. Every leader thinks they're helping. Most don't realise when they've become the problem. From staying at the office until 11pm answering questions nobody else could, to...
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Episode 3 - Is There A future In Supply Chain?
AI is coming for every industry. But is supply chain really at risk or is that just noise? In episode three of Under the Pallet Wrap, Keith and Dan get into the detail. What automation can and can't replace, why the humans who've done the job will always matter, and what the next generation of...
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Episode 2 - What Is Supply Chain?
Supply chain. Everyone talks about it. Few people agree on where it actually starts and ends. In episode two Keith and Dan get into the detail — unpacking one of the most misunderstood questions in ecommerce and operations. Dan breaks it down to three questions every founder and ops leader should...
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Episode 1 - The Conversation We've Been Meaning To Have
Here, Keith and Dan get into the conversation they’ve been meaning to have for decades. They unpack the experiences, lessons, challenges, and moments across their careers that shaped how they think about supply chains, operations, leadership, and business today. It’s an honest, insightful, and...
About this show
A podcast for anyone who wants to hear how supply chains really work, whether you're just starting out or have spent decades in the industry.
Hosted by Keith Dupres and Dan Culverhouse, two operators who between them have worked across logistics, eCommerce, compliance and operations at some of the UK's most recognisable brands for a combined 50+ years.
Every episode we pull back the wrapper on the decisions, the trade-offs and the moments that make or break a supply chain, from where it actually begins (earlier than most people think) to who's really responsible when things go wrong.
If you're a founder trying to scale, an operator trying to be heard, or someone who's just curious about what happens between the product being made and it landing on a doorstep, this is the podcast for you.
Kindly subscribe and join us on this journey.
Hosted by
Keith Dupres and Dan Culverhouse