It started with a simple frustration

RFS Worldwide didn’t begin as a freight forwarding company. It began as a question.

Our founders started as a small logistics support and workforce supply business based in the UK. The work was straightforward — sending skilled hands to warehouses, helping firms move goods across the country, and supplying drivers and yard staff to logistics companies that needed an extra pair of hands during a busy week.

We were the people behind the people. The team that made other UK logistics operations run smoothly. And in that role, we had a front-row seat to something we couldn’t ignore.

What we kept seeing in the freight industry

Every week, we watched good UK businesses lose money on bad shipping.

We saw small exporters quoted one price and charged another. We saw containers held up at UK ports because someone hadn’t filled in a customs form properly. We saw online sellers losing sleep because their stock was sitting somewhere between China and a UK warehouse, and nobody could tell them where.

We heard the same story over and over from importers and exporters across the country: “I just want someone to handle this for me. Someone who picks up the phone. Someone who tells me the truth.”

And we started thinking — we already understand the warehouse floor. We already understand how teams move goods. Why not handle the entire international shipping journey ourselves, and do it the way it should be done?

From workforce supply to full-service freight forwarder

That was the turning point. We stopped just supplying the workforce and started taking ownership of the freight itself.

It wasn’t a sudden leap. It was a gradual shift, built on years of watching what worked and what didn’t in UK logistics. We knew the people. We knew the warehouses. We knew the carriers we trusted and the corners that some companies cut. So when we became a freight forwarder in our own right, we had something most new logistics firms don’t — we’d already lived inside the industry.

We brought that experience with us. The hands-on knowledge of how a pallet really gets from a port to a shelf. The relationships with carriers we’d worked alongside for years. The honest, no-nonsense way of dealing with people that came from running a workforce business, where every conversation matters.

RFS Worldwide today

Today, RFS Worldwide is a full-service UK freight forwarding and logistics company. We move goods worldwide by air, sea, road, and rail. We handle UK customs clearance, warehousing, distribution, and Amazon FBA logistics. We help online sellers get their stock into UK fulfilment centres and onto customers’ doorsteps across the world.

We’ve grown, but we haven’t changed our approach. The same people who built the workforce side of the business are the ones running the freight forwarding side now. The same belief that small details matter — a phone call returned, a question answered honestly, a problem solved before it becomes a crisis — still runs through everything we do.

What we believe

We believe international shipping shouldn’t feel like a gamble. You shouldn’t need a degree in trade law to send a parcel overseas. You shouldn’t have to chase three different companies to find out where your container is. And you shouldn’t be charged extra for asking a question.

We believe in plain talk, fair freight rates, and doing what we said we’d do.

That’s the kind of freight forwarder we set out to build. That’s the kind we are today.

The journey continues

Every shipment we handle is part of someone’s bigger story — a UK business growing, a family moving home, a product reaching its first overseas customer. We don’t take that lightly.

Whatever you’re sending, wherever in the world it’s going, we’d be glad to help you get it there. Get in touch with the RFS Worldwide team today.