Tag: Europe

Postcomm forum illustrates strong feelings and diverse views on zonal pricing

Posted by | Jun 12, 2007 | |

Debate at Postcomm’s fourth annual industry forum over Royal Mail’s application to apply what it calls zonal pricing to some business mail products has illustrated the strong feelings and diverse views on the subject.

Royal Mail has applied to Postcomm to charge large mailers – using products which are not part of the Universal Service – different prices depending on where in the UK their mail is delivered. Today’s workshop was held as part of Postcomm’s consultation process for this application.

In advance of the workshop, a Royal Mail spokesperson said “the one-price-goes-anywhere universal service to the UK’s 27 million addresses is open to every customer and we have urged the regulator to agree that this service should be focused on stamped mail.”

For business customers, Royal Mail “believes where strong competition and customer choice is already well established, Postcomm should let the market decide on prices. That means allowing Royal Mail to introduce zonal pricing for bulk business mail – if business customers want it. Zonal pricing is already available and being used by Royal Mail’s access customers where prices can already vary if the mailing is for high or low density areas.”

Representatives from Postwatch, the customer watchdog, asked why Royal Mail “is proceeding with zonal pricing, an initiative that has received no customer support whatsoever”. Highlighting the potential impact on customers, and the wider postal market, Postwatch identified significant features, both positive and negative, within Royal Mail’s proposals concluding that the time was “not right to change to such a pricing structure”. Postwatch also urged customers to respond to Postcomm stating their opposition to the proposals to support “the fact that this change will be unreasonable for users of the service”.

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Postcomm annual report looks back on a year of significant change

Posted by | Jun 12, 2007 | |

Postcomm’s 2006/07 annual report published today covers the first full year during which two significant Postcomm policy initiatives took effect: Royal Mail’s long-standing monopoly of the mail market was removed completely at the start of 2006 and a new four year price and service quality control came into effect on 1 April 2006.

Royal Mail still has a virtual monopoly over the final mile with less than 1% of the mail now being delivered end-to-end by rival operators. However, ‘access’ competition has developed to a more significant extent. Currently nearly a quarter of bulk business mail is collected from the mailer by rival operators and handed over to Royal Mail for delivery ‘the final mile’. More than 70% of the total revenues in this access competition structure are retained by Royal Mail.

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New contract with Birds Eye

Posted by | Jun 12, 2007 | |

Christian Salvesen Foods has won a major new 10 -year contract with Birds Eye to provide pea processing and dedicated logistics services for Europe’s largest pea processing factory in Hull.

The GBP 10 million investment with Birds Eye will be operational by May 2008 and the project will see the current Christian Salvesen site in Salvesen Way, on the Brighton Street industrial estate, expanded with the addition of a new factory capable of handling more than 50,000 tonnes of processed peas each year.

This latest project strengthens the existing partnership between Salvesen and Birds Eye and provides cold storage, distribution and processing facilities at the factory to be built by Birds Eye. The company and Christian Salvesen Foods have a strong partnership that currently also provides processing and cold storage facilities in Lowestoft – an operation that has been working successfully for more than seven years.

Colin Miles, Managing Director of Christian Salvesen Foods, believes this new project further strengthens Salvesen’s position as a leading provider of value added services to the food processing sector. “Birds Eye expects quality and a high standard of logistical expertise and that is what we provide at Christian Salvesen. We already provide a number of high quality value-added logistics and processing services to Birds Eye and other major food retailers and this new contract demonstrates our commitment to this sector.”

Jon Strachan, European Supply Chain Director for the Birds Eye Iglo Group commented, “We are very pleased to have negotiated this long-term dedicated contract with Salvesens that enables us to use their capabilities in this primary processing area whilst retaining in-house our key areas of know-how in the agriculture, secondary processing and packing of our high quality peas. We have a long-standing working relationship with the Salvesens team and this together with these exciting plans gives us every confidence that this investment will create value for both businesses.”

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Christian Salvesen Foods: New contract with Birds Eye

Posted by | Jun 12, 2007 | |

Christian Salvesen Foods has won a major new 10 year contract with Birds Eye to provide pea processing and dedicated logistics services for Europe’s largest pea processing factory in Hull.

The GBP 10 million investments with Birds Eye will be operational by May 2008 and the project will see the current Christian Salvesen site in Salvesen Way, on the Brighton Street industrial estate, expanded with the addition of a new factory capable of handling more than 50,000 tones of processed peas each year.

This latest project strengthens the existing partnership between Salvesen and Birds Eye and provides cold storage, distribution and processing facilities at the factory to be built by Birds Eye. The company and Christian Salvesen Foods have a strong partnership that currently also provides processing and cold storage facilities in Lowestoft – an operation that has been working successfully for more than seven years.

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Der Kurier extends network to Czech Republic

Posted by | Jun 12, 2007 | |

The German express operator Der Kurier, a subsidiary of GLS, has extended its overnight network to Czech Republic and halved delivery times to 24 hours.

Its European partner network, which already covers Germany, Benelux, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, UK, France, Italy, Poland and Hungary, has been extended through a new partner, Der Kurier Czech Republic.

Products picked up for example in Amsterdam at 6 p.m are delivered to the final destination in Plzen the next morning before 12:00, the company said. Shipments are transported via its European hub at Neuenstein in central Germany.

Czech Republic is becoming an increasingly important economy with double-digit growth in imports in recent years.

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