'REVERSING' OUT OF RECESSION
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Among the many strings to the Widdowson Group's bow is the growing sector of reverse logistics.
Commercial director John Hawksworth says: "We've always been known as a transport company, but we're now growing into becoming a recognised logistics company and trying to diversify beyond transport and storage and into contract packing.
"We've currently got British Retail Consortium (BRC) accreditation. It's similar to other quality standards such as ISO, but it means our standards are recognised within the field of contract packaging."
He continues: "Reverse logistics is very much part of this process. We can take control of the return of a customer's product, whether that's part of a product recall, or just a matter of damaged goods, as well as reprocessing cardboard waste etc.
'We can also split loads and repackage product, depending on what the customer wants. It's another added value process for us. We're controlling collection of used and end-of-life products offering a full reprocessing service."
The reverse logistics service also makes it easier to provide genuine backloads for the group's vehicles, not least its delivery fleet. "In terms of our fleet, we've got 50 rigids on multi-drop, although it's very difficult to backload a rigid vehicle with anything more than one to two pallets. This [reverse logistics] is where we get wholesale use of a rigid truck and greater loading rates, too"