THE REFORMS during the winter of 1809–10 made crucial and lasting improvements to the victualling service. The planning of victualling shipments was now centralised at the Victualling Board, in the hands of those with expert knowledge and experience of arranging supplies. Planning ahead, unheard of in 1808–9, meant tonnage could be secured in advance, with increased amounts of money available for transport hire. The Victualling Board was organising the distribution of resources before commanders requested them; efficiency became the overriding objective of the board. If 1809 had been a year in which shortage had become a significant issue, from 1810 wastage was the concern. Far from being short of supplies, the Baltic fleet was over-supplied throughout 1810–12. The Victualling Board in 1810, having made a detailed account of the quantities already sent, and those about to be sent, suspended the shipment of 400 tons of food, so as to avoid ‘considerable expense and loss to the public in the event of the same not being required for the supply of the beforementioned squadron’. Again, the contrast with the previous year was marked. Whereas in 1809 the Victualling Board had been desperate to requisition any tonnage available, and struggled to send ships out fully supplied, in 1810 they were asking permission to suspend shipments. In reply it was ordered that ‘the whole of the Provisions remaining due upon warrant for the supply of the Squadron in the Baltic be countermanded’.