We’re excited to announce that we have relocated our main UK distribution facility to a new warehouse at Velocity Point, Leeds. This move marks a significant expansion and has been completed to ensure we can maintain our relentless commitment to personalised solutions, frictionless service & operational reliability. This approach has delivered consistent and substantial sales growth over the last 10 years in our range of packaging consumables and machinery, all delivered through our technical consultancy service.
Discover the journey and benefits of our move to a brand-new distribution facility below.
Unpacking the Decision: Why We Moved
Moving to Velocity Point is a key part of the company’s long-term strategic growth plan. It’s a brand-new building with a perfect location; close to our UK Head Office and with direct links to the M1 and M62. It is a highly specified site, built with a sharp focus on sustainability, with renewable and environmentally responsible features integral to the scheme.
Our customers now demand faster deliveries and more personalised operational support. This has necessitated tighter control over the entire supply chain to stay ahead in the market and ensure we never have to compromise on cost or our exceptionally high levels of quality.
We now serve numerous big brands from multiple market sectors. Each brand often has unique requirements from product specifications to delivery timelines, which not only vary company-to-company, but also site-to-site. We’ve always been exceptionally proud of how our agility has allowed us to service so many varying needs. Moving forwards, with our new facilities, we believe that we are even better placed to ensure each brand’s requirements are met efficiently and without disruption. This move is therefore delivering against one key goal – to have complete control over the service levels provided to customers.
“We believe this expansion is crucial for us to maintain seamless operations and an exceptionally high level of customer satisfaction. It will allow us to be best positioned to provide timely deliveries, optimal stock levels, and cost-effective packaging solutions. With this control, we can mitigate risks more effectively and respond more swiftly to changes in demand than ever before. We’ve always focussed on offering more than just a transactional relationship by adding a ‘4th Dimension’ to our customers. This expansion is part of ensuring we can carry on delivering that promise.” Neil Christie, Managing Director at Hazel 4D.
Building on a Decade of Success
This move brings an end to an extremely successful 3PL partnership that has been pivotal to our growth over the last 10 years. Founded in 1979, we switched to using 3PL services in 2014 after a fire completely destroyed our warehouse. Almost overnight we were up and running again with our new partners and that service ensured we had a fantastic relationship over the following years. Watch the video of how we bounced back:
This partnership has provided us with unique insights from both sides of the equation; we’ve been serving as a significant customer of, and supplier to the 3PL sector. Having such a close relationship for a significant period of time in this format has been critical in gaining a true understanding of operational intricacies, communication preferences, and performance expectations. It has allowed us to tailor our service offering more effectively and develop our solutions to meet those requirements, in particular Intelligent Load Stability and Total Packaging Management.
The enhanced capabilities that Velocity Point offers us, means that we can carry on improving these solutions in the future.
Inside the Upgrade: Supporting Our Added Value Solutions
We’re committed to improving the business performance of our customers. In order to do that, we’ve always offered more than just packaging products and focussed on adding real value to our role in their supply chain. Our pioneering packaging management solution, Total Packaging Management (TPM) has seen incredible growth in demand since the start of the global pandemic.
After first launching over 20 years ago, TPM has been essential in giving customers the ability to focus on their key areas of operations, taking away all considerations for packaging inventory and stock management. This has been incredibly beneficial with the unprecedented challenges of the last few years and the significant growth many of our customers have experienced. This has led to a greater need to keep warehousing space dedicated to manufacturing, stock and not for storing unused packaging. Most importantly, TPM gives customers flexibility whilst simplifying this area of their operations.
Expanding our warehouse capacity means we can commit to expanding our TPM service significantly over the next few years and support more customers with this added value solution than ever before.
Looking Forward: Strengthening Our Distribution Capabilities
In addition, the growth in our machinery sales and expansion in our machinery range has been a significant contributor to our need for additional warehousing capacity. We have a commitment to deliver frictionless service to our customers and this gives more flexible access to demonstrations at our Distribution Centre.
Our commitment to providing personalised service and improving business performance means that we’re not just delivering goods; we’re delivering solutions. Whether it’s adjusting delivery schedules, customising packaging, or implementing specialised operational procedures, we’re dedicated to meeting and exceeding the expectations of our customers. Our investment in expanding our distribution capabilities across Europe has been instrumental in ensuring seamless operations for customers with packaging operations outside of the UK. With strategically located warehouses, supported by dedicated 3PL partners, we’re able to offer efficient and reliable service throughout the continent. We’ve embraced this challenge by developing flexible distribution solutions tailored to meet the specific needs of each customer and territory.