About 18 Wheels Logistics
The 18 Wheels story may have begun over 30+ years ago, but we are just getting started. Thanks to our amazing team, systematic infrastructure & segment specialization, we continue to sustainably improve every day and provide long-term value for our customers in the Vancouver warehousing industry.
Distribution experts, specializing in Vancouver warehousing, co-packing, e-commerce fulfillment, warehousing, and transportation.
Our customer base is comprised of some of the world's leading companies, representing a vast array of industries and commodities.
Our Five Strategy Pillars:
Long-Term Sustainability
We make decisions based on long-term sustainability because it builds a financially healthy company. Every day build an even deeper & more sustainable infrastructure and foundation.
Systematic
Our organization is continually & meticulously re-engineered daily to ensure our processes produce streamlined outcomes creating a more effective organization. Kaizen, continuous improvement to increase operational effectiveness and productivity.
Specialization
Our strategy for success has been simple; to focus on specifically targeted market segments, then through consistent repetition continually learn everything about the market to maintain expertise.
Technology Leaders
We have spent thousands of hours and will continue to spend thousands of hours developing our proprietary software that allows us to automate our processes and provide valuable technological solutions to our customers.
Customer-Centric
Word of mouth has been our number one selling feature.
Our Vision:
To be the most trusted leader in providing world-class Supply Chain Solutions.
Our Mission:
To provide our customers with the absolute best single-source solution for warehousing, co-packing, & transportation - existing as an integral part of our customers strategy by being the absolute most cost effective & value creating business partner - we believe in delivering a disciplined culture of trust, safety, & customer-centric service.
Our Values:
- Customer Centric - Our team goes above and beyond for our customers. It is in our DNA to provide the absolute best customer experience and deliver competitive excellence.
- Trust – We are the most reliable extension of our customers’ businesses; we always act with transparency, honesty, and with our customers best interest in mind.
- Accountability – Ownership and attention to detail throughout all our customer activities and communication.
- Integrity – We keep our promises and do what we say.
- Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) – We proactively move with a sense of urgency to look for service, process, and technological improvement to benefit our customers.
- Our People – We continuously grow & develop our dream team.
Our History
1989 - Deep Routes
The first location of 18 Wheels was established in East Vancouver, a 7,000-square-foot facility equipped with two dock-level loading bays. From the start, the company operated on principles shaped by industry experience and a clear vision for sustainable growth. A key value was to build the business “deep versus wide,” focusing on strengthening infrastructure and narrowing its niche to warehousing excellence.
The company embraced stable, steady, and sustainable growth as its core philosophy. By continually investing in technology, people, and processes, 18 Wheels established a robust foundation to support its mission: delivering the best possible experience for its customers. This approach not only ensured operational efficiency but also created a business poised for long-term success.
1991 - Chinatown
Located near Vancouver’s Chinatown, 18 Wheels naturally attracted a clientele of Asian food and beverage importers, thanks to its close proximity and its founder’s connections within the Chinese community.
The company’s early success was built on a personalized approach, with representatives visiting local businesses to understand their needs and offer tailored support.
This community-focused strategy helped 18 Wheels gain a strong reputation in Chinatown, where the company even extended credit terms of up to a year to support its customers. While this required operating on a tight budget, the philosophy was clear: by helping others achieve their goals, the company would ultimately achieve its own.
During these early years, 18 Wheels stored and distributed a diverse range of goods, from soft drinks and biscuits to container loads of bamboo sweeping brooms. By 1991, the growing demand prompted the company to expand its facility, leasing an additional 9,000 square feet and one more dock to accommodate its operations, which now serviced over 25 customers.
1996 - Copacking & Contract Packaging
By the mid 1990's the company started to focus primary on helping its customers repackage their goods for the Canadian domestic market. Primarily importers of ethnic juices would ship in container loads of different flavors of beverages and 18 Wheels would use physical labor to create variety packs for the consumer market. At this time, the company began to invest in to what is now known as contract-packaging equipment or co-packing equipment.
2001 - Broadway
By 2001, 18 Wheels had outgrown its facility on Skeena and needed to take on additional warehouse space. The company leased a secondary location on 3438 East Broadway Street Vancouver. A unique location that was underneath a Chinese restaurant and frozen food supplier. This location added 25,000 square feet to the 18 Wheels footprint and provided a tasty place for dim-sum where 18 Wheels Staff was regularly seen.
2009 - The Year of the Big Break
18 Wheels landed its largest customer, T&T Supermarket a company started in 1993 by a Taiwanese entrepreneur Cindy Lee, who named the business after her 2 daughters Tina and Tiffany. T&T required extra warehousing, contract packaging, and distribution services for it's growing business, which now does over $500 million in revenue across Canada and was recently purchased by the Loblaw Grocery Group of Companies. This new partnership grew the business of 18 Wheels by over 25 percent.
2010 - Engineering an even Stronger Infrastructure
With deep infrastructure investment including information technology, financial organizing, human resource strengthening, and widening management bandwidth, 18 Wheels grew it's customer base through 100% word of mouth referrals requiring it to add an additional 115,000 square feet of distribution space. The company began to attract industries not only in beverage and food, but also appliances, electronics, and building supplies.
2011 - Conservative and Steady
The value of long-term was instilled in to the company’s culture. “We make decisions based on long-term sustainability because it builds a financially healthy company. Every day build an even deeper & more sustainable infrastructure and foundation.” This value helped 18 Wheels direct focus on its niche of a single source solution for contract-packaging, warehousing, and transportation services, narrowing its market segment to CPG beverage, alcohol, electronics, and building materials. In 2011 the company also, grew to add an additional 200,000 square feet with an additional facility on Vulcan Way in Richmond BC.
2012 - Coast to Coast
Michael Kotendzhi was promoted to Chief Operating Officer at the beginning of 2012, equipped with a degree in Logistics from the University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business and a background in logistics from XPO Logistics (formally Kelron Logistics) North Americas largest contract warehousing provider. Michael began to develop 18 Wheels' transportation solution, effectively utilizing the sister company's vehicle fleet, and building a transportation supply-chain network across North America from coast to coast. By 2012 the warehousing foot print grew to over 300,000 square feet of distribution space.
2013 - Alberta Boom
Western Canada expansion. At the start of 2013 the Alberta economy was still on a boom, 18 Wheels opened its first facility in south east Calgary, Alberta within minutes to the Calgary Canadian Pacific Railway Terminal. At this time the company grew to over 425,000 square feet of logistics space. Even though Alberta has been through an oil downturn over the past few years, the 18 Wheels business has durably progressed with an upward trajectory due to the stable food and beverage market it focuses on.
2015 - Imported Alcohol Distribution
In addition to the domestic alcoholic products 18 Wheels was already distributing for, 18 Wheels acquired a secondary import alcohol license to allow it to store, distribute, and transport alcoholic products imported from Europe, Asia, Mexico, and South America. This action further deepened the company's niche in the beverage and alcohol industry.
2017 - Sustainability
Due to customer demand, 18 Wheels opened another new facility in Washington, USA to provide a contract logistics warehouse facility to key customers in the food and beverage industry. 2017, was the same year that Idy Lee was promoted to Operations Manager. Idy, an experienced operator with over 20 years experience in warehousing operations, utilized her background to deepen 18 Wheels' foundation to support the 600,000 square feet of warehousing space 18 Wheels was running in 2017.
2019 - Strength to Strength
In 2019, Meng Lai was promoted to Chief Financial Officer.
Meng had over 20 years’ experience, graduated from the Sauder School of Business specializing in Finance & Management, held CPA, CMA, and CFA designations, and served as Vice President for the Bank of Tokyo MUFJ, Senior Manager of Advisory Value Creation for Deloitte, Goldman Sachs Hong Kong, and HSBC Canada. Utilizing his experience and expertise, Meng helped to lead the company's financial infrastructure initiatives allowing 18 Wheels to continue with conservative, steady, and sustainable growth to over 650,000 square feet in Vancouver, Calgary, and Washington, plus 400,000 square feet in partner facilities in Toronto, Los Angeles, Edmonton, Nanaimo, and Kelowna.
2020 - Long Term Thinking & Investing
The 18 Wheels group completed its 3rd industrial warehouse purchase in Vancouver BC Canada (GVRD). 18 Wheels' philosophy has always been to make decisions based on the long term always for our customers, people, and company.
Owning the buildings we operate out of helps to secure deeper foundations for our customers and business in the long term.
2021 - Modernization of Production Lines
18 Wheels invested substantially towards updating and modernizing our internal co-packing equipment and industrial warehouse space in Vancouver BC. This investment was made to upgrade our previous equipment and replace the production lines with brand new state of the art technology and more effective production lines that can handle 8 times more of the throughput. This increase in productivity was driven by purchasing machines that automated more of the processes involved in co-packing.
The Future - Deeper is Better than Wider
18 Wheels continues to move ahead deeply instead of widely, focusing on providing the absolute best customer experience possible. Making sure we are excellent at what we are doing now, before taking a step forward is instilled in the values of the business, ever since we started in 1989. We've been around now for over 32 years and we have taken an approach of a conservative, steady, and stable growth path versus a fast growth path which ensures we remain durable and sustainable during all business and economic environments. Focusing on constantly re-engineering and building the absolute best foundation through technology, processes, & people first before taking on further growth allows 18 Wheels to provide superior service. This is what makes it possible for the company to continue to scale through word of mouth, because our customers are our best advocates.
