SPOTLIGHT: EVOLVE PACK
Flexibility at heart of Evolve Pack Steve Bristol, Operations and Co-Packing support Manager for united biscuits, discusses adapting to situations of mass packing processes
Yet flexibility for the customers is only part of the story; the co-packing operation also steps in to support UB’s other factories in their crisis moments. Bristol explains that on occasions when a line breaks down in one of the
manufacturing sites around the U.K, but an order needs to get to a customer, the co-packing operation can be called on to do what he calls a “re-pack to support”
If you had to pick one word to describe McVities Biscuits Distribution hub in Leicestershire it would be ‘BIG’. The site, The Midlands Distributions Centre (MDC), has space for no fewer than 60,000 pallets in its giant part-automated warehouse.
ome 90% of McVities production of household- name brands, including Digestives, Jaffa Cakes, Hob Nobs and TUC, pass through MDC on their way to the supermarket shelves.
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At the heart of the site is a co- packing operation. Run by Evolve Pack, one of the UK’s fastest growing co-pack businesses, packing in excess of 6 million cases per year.
GUARANTEED PRODUCTIVITY McVities co-packing activities involve re-packing cases of product and producing end of aisle display and merchandising units for the supermarkets as well as products that require flow wrapping, clip stripping and cartoning.
Co-packing was being outsourced to third party packers. “At the time, we wanted to save money for the business by saving on transport costs and premium third party charges and just keep the money within the business,” says Steve Bristol, United Biscuits
Operations & Co-Packing Support Manager.
Evolve Pack took over the operation 18 months ago, and now runs it as what it terms a Managed Internal Packing Service (MIPS). Effectively, it’s ‘In-house-Outsourcing’ and, importantly Evolve Pack invoices only for work completed, based on agreed cases per man hour calculations, rather than hourly labour rates. Temps are also a thing of the past, this is guaranteed productivity, clients only pay for what they get.
“You’ve got to keep an open mind, anything is possible.”
Steve Bristol says “The main reason for going down the route of Managed Internal Packing was through the way our customers work, we need ultimate flexibility here on site to do the job
CRISIS MOMENTS
“Flexibility for the customer is crucial”, Bristol says, ”The way customers are, they don’t always want what they intially forecasted, so it’s not unusual for a customer to come in and say, next week they want an extra 20,000 cases of a certain product. It can even be next day. So Evolve pack have to react; get their teams in and produce the stock.”
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“As a business, we’re always looking to reduce cost. If you’re sending something to a third party, you’re adding at least two journeys. It’s cheaper to do it here, rather than send it somewhere else”
A BULLISH ATTITUDE It’s a bullish attitude and one that Steve Bristol believes is central to the success of any co- packing operation. “You’ve got to keep an open mind, anything is
possible,” he says, ”There are massive benefits doing this work internally. You should always believe you can do the work. Evolve pack had jobs thrown at them last year where we had to produce thousands of cases at the drop of a hat. It’s a matter of adapting your site to cope with it, then working with someone like Evolve Pack to get that ultimate flexibility. We’ve had a lot thrown at us in the last year and ultimately it’s come down to McVities Distribution & Evolve Pack to correct it or produce it; and every time we’ve been challenged, we’ve done it. And long may it continue”.
Evolve Pack
Gainstate Distribution Centre, Ashby-De-La-Zouch, LE65 1PF Tel: 0845 003 5375 Web:
www.evolvepack.co.uk
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