AN UNPRECEDENTED & GLOBAL CHALLENGE LIKE NO OTHER

In 2020 the world faced an extraordinary and unprecedented challenge. Overnight, awareness of safety and hygiene best practice was raised and priorities shifted as the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic sent the UK into lockdown.

The Government and World Health Organisation (WHO) prepared for the NHS to be overrun with patients requiring urgent healthcare, the nation was instructed to ‘stay at home’ and supply chain logistics became the backbone of the nation.

With key worker status, we were committed and proud to play our role in the end-to-end supply chain.

Supporting our country, customers and community by trunking and delivering newspapers and magazines to retailers containing vital public health information, ensuring the nation remained informed throughout uncertain times.

Using our network and unique set of capabilities, we also supported our country, distributing essential medical supplies to the NHS, GP practices and care homes throughout the pandemic, and joined forces with leading players in the UK’s parcel industry to collectively manage the nationwide collection and delivery of Covid-19 testing kits direct to laboratories.

Working from home was never an option.

The very nature of our work in supply chain logistics means we come into contact with a high volume of items and people every day. And as the pandemic has proven, supply chains are crucial to every aspect of today’s society.

Shutting down was out of the question. So we overhauled our ways of working overnight, for the safety of our people, community, retail customers and our customers’ customers.

In doing so we’ve also been able to deliver critical PPE and life-saving medical supplies to NHS Scotland services across the country, and joined forces with the leading players in the UK’s parcel industry to collectively manage the nationwide collection and delivery of Covid-19 testing kits direct to laboratories.

Maintaining a sustainable route to market for newstrade has been paramount for Menzies from the very beginning of the pandemic

For our newstrade customers, we make over 100,000 trunking movements from print sites to wholesale branches every year, making over 11 million retail newstrade deliveries, and pack and deliver 866 million newspapers and 642 million magazines nationally.

In partnership with Frontline, Seymour & Marketforce, we built an export solution in weeks, to export 35 million magazines worldwide for a UK industry facing considerable disruption from Covid.

A Sustainable Business

100K

Newstrade trunking movements

11M

retail newstrade deliveries (Lockdown)

+1.5B

Newspapers & Magazines delivered

35M

Magazines exported worldwide

DURING THE PANDEMIC MENZIES DISTRIBUTION:

Overhauled our ways of working overnight to protect our people customers & community. Putting Health, Safety and Wellbeing at the forefront of everything we do.

Supported Retailers by providing vital supply chains to ensure the availability of Newstrade stock and essential goods.

Maintained a sustainable route to market for publishers throughout.

Supported customers through lockdowns, reacting quickly to meet time criticality through periods of closures and re-openings, and working with closed-down retailers to encourage them back into the category.

Adapted to meet the surge in consumable goods, delivering peak volumes throughout the course of the pandemic.

Group’s pandemic response honoured by our industries

We were proud to be named Covid Hero of the Year at the 2022 Association of Circulation Executives Newspaper and Magazine Awards (ACE-NMA). Presenting the award to Menzies, the distinguished panel of judges drawn from the newstrade and publishing industry said: “Clearly much effort has gone into supporting their customers and workforce.”

The NMA award was the second time in a year that Menzies had been honoured by a key industry body for its Covid-related new initiatives. In September 2021 the group won Best

Pandemic Response in Logistics UK’s Van Awards.

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“To overcome the current pandemic situation and safely continue to operate whilst still delivering high levels of service is a testament to the strength of the relationship, and the talent involved within the operations.”