Logistics group Wincanton has renewed its warehousing and distribution contracts with food giant Heinz and maintained its position as one of the global brand’s Golden Circle of preferred suppliers.
Chippenham-based Wincanton has been transporting around 92m cases of Heinz products a year for the past 15 years. The renewals takes this contract to 2015, extends a warehousing agreement for the next four years and also means Wincanton’s order management team will handle customer orders across all temperature ranges for Heinz.
Wincanton managing director, manufacturing, Chris Kingshott said: “The company is extremely proud to be able to continue its 15-year association with the world-famous brand”.
He pointed out 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.”
HJ Heinz UK & Ireland Logistics Director Andy Henderson said: “During the contract renewal process Wincanton demonstrated a clear understanding of H.J. Heinz’s business and the extremely high standards we set.”
Also counting in Wincanton’s favour was its ability to respond to huge seasonally-influenced fluctuations in volume-levels for the company’s products.
Mr Kingshott added: “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.”
