FDBusiness.com

Contract extension sees Wincanton again invited to join iconic brand’s “Golden Circle” of preferred suppliers

Wincanton has announced the renewal of its long-standing warehousing and distribution contracts with H.J. Heinz and continued membership of the iconic brand’s “Golden Circle” of preferred suppliers.

The contract means Wincanton will transport around 92 million cases a year across H.J. Heinz’s extensive product range – including the famous baked bean, tinned soup and other household-name products – until at least 2015.

In addition, Wincanton has won an extension to provide warehousing services for the next four years and its order management team will also handle all customer orders – up to 6,000 per month – across all temperature ranges on behalf of H.J. Heinz.

Chris Kingshott, managing director, manufacturing at Wincanton, said:

“The Company is extremely proud to be able to continue its 15-year association with the world-famous brand”.

Chris also revealed plans for even closer working arrangements, announcing that for the second year running Wincanton was the only logistics company invited into Heinz’s top tier, or “Golden Circle”, of preferred suppliers.

“This means we will be working extremely closely with Heinz on the intellectual development of its distribution strategies throughout the UK,” he said.

“For instance, we are already looking at ways of reducing our operations’ impact on the environment through initiatives such as our regional transport centres, shared resources and enhanced planning.”

Andy Henderson, HJ Heinz UK & Ireland Logistics Director said:

“Wincanton is a proven-quality service provider which offers flexible, secure and strategic solutions to our warehouse and distribution requirements. During the contract renewal process they demonstrated a clear understanding of H.J. Heinz’s business and the extremely high standards we set.”

Another factor in Wincanton retaining and extending its contract with H.J. Heinz was its ability to respond to huge seasonally-influenced fluctuations in volume-levels for the company’s products.

Chris Kingshott said:

“An example of this would be during the autumn and winter months, when retailers see huge surges in demand for products such as tinned soup, which Wincanton can respond to by mobilising a combination of its own fleet and its extensive ‘preferred haulier’ members of smaller haulage firms based throughout the UK.”