16 May 2022
Group’s pandemic response honoured for the second time
Menzies Distribution is proud to have been 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.”
Maintaining a sustainable route to market for newstrade has been paramount for Menzies from the very beginning of the Covid pandemic. Every year, Menzies makes more than 100,000 trunking movements from print sites to wholesale branches, completing over 11 million retail newstrade deliveries, and packing and delivering 866 million newspapers and 642 million magazines nationally. In partnership with Frontline, Seymour and Marketforce, the group built an export solution in weeks, to export 35 million magazines worldwide for a UK industry facing considerable disruption from Covid.
The NMA award is the second time in a year that Menzies has 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.
Commenting on this latest accolade, Grant Jordan, Managing Director, Menzies Distribution Newstrade, said:
“We’re delighted to have been recognised in this way by the newspaper and publishing industry. 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.
We overhauled our ways of working overnight, for the safety of our people, communities, customers and our customers’ customers, because shutting down was never an option. We continue to work in this way, in newstrade and all areas of our business.
This would not have been possible without the hard work, commitment, and dedication of our people day in, day out, from everyone on the frontline making deliveries and the warehouse teams picking, packing and processing returns, to the customer service and central functions teams, including those working from home. This achievement truly is a collective effort, we are all Covid heroes.”
Outside news and publishing, Menzies worked closely with the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. Tasked with ensuring distribution of critical protection, the group delivered 10 million PPE items to GPs and care homes in a single weekend, and joined forces with the UK parcel industry to deliver massive scale Covid-19 test collection support.
Menzies’ corporate citizenship has also been widely recognised by its peers for its commitment to socially responsible and sustainable practices. The group was named Green Fleet of the Year for the second consecutive year at the What Van? Awards 2022, as well as winning Logistics UK’s Sustainable Van Operator of the Year, the Unipart Logistics award for Sustainability at the Supply Chain Excellence Awards and a prize for Green Innovation at the Logistics Leadership Awards.
