In September 2020, Rhenus Home Delivery UK moved into its brand new 55,000 sqft warehouse in Leighton Buzzard. The purpose-built facility, which is now fully racked out to 10m (creating more than 6000 pallet spaces) is located approximately 10 minutes from junction 11A of the M1, and just 30 minutes from London, and represents a significant step change in the company’s offer …
“Opening the new warehouse has provided us with significantly more resource to operate with,” begins Rhenus’ UK sales manager, Gavin Boden. “As we onboarded several major ecommerce accounts last year, alongside growing the business significantly, it was a necessary investment.”
The Rhenus Group is a leading logistics service provider, with global business operations and an annual turnover of €5.5b. Rhenus has business sites at 750 locations worldwide, and employs 33,000 people.
“We see ourselves as invaluable partners to provide our customers with value-added services,” adds Vinny Riley, Rhenus’ UK MD. “We take pride in the services we provide to our clients and their customers, and the two-man delivery industry has grown exponentially due the continued growth of ecommerce.
“At Rhenus Home Delivery, we want to be the best in the market and become renowned for our exceptional white-glove service. We are always looking at improving our customer experience, including communication, tracking and interaction. Our traffic management system helps us to do this, but also enables our clients to access live reports anytime they need to.
“Not only do we run a two-man home delivery service, but we also find solutions for a wide variety of different sectors along the complete supply chain. These include multimodal transport operations, warehousing, customs clearance, and innovative, value-added services.”
Rhenus operates a network of two-man home delivery teams across Europe. In the UK, it operates from four regional depots and works with specialist delivery partners to ensure reach right across the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Services range from standard room-of-choice deliveries and basic installations, to the removal of packaging and disposal of old beds and furniture.
Rhenus also specialises in part-order and multiple-supplier deliveries (order consolidation), and will hold all products until the complete order is ready for dispatch. With a modern IT infrastructure working alongside a variety of data transfer methods and in-house systems, the logistics specialist also provides a track-and-trace system for customers, so they can see an order’s live progress.
The removal and recycling of old and used furniture is a key part of the business, as protecting the environment is becoming more important to retailers and their customers.
Gavin adds: “We want to ensure that all the old furniture we collect is recycled appropriately. We have been working closely with the Environment Agency (EA) to make sure we surpass their expectations. Our mattress recycling partner handles the product in such a way that 99.9% of material can be used again in a wide range of different industries.”
Since 2017, Rhenus Home Delivery UK has developed its services to offer: minimum service of room of choice deliveries; removal and disposal of packaging; basic assembly of furniture and brown goods; removal and recycle/efficient disposal of old furniture; warehousing; container decant; and order consolidation.
