Drinks industry rises to Olympic delivery challenge

Drinks deliveries across London are continuing to operate as normal, despite fears that London 2012 would bring chaos.

Suppliers are reporting business as normal as the expected transport problems around the summer Olympics Games have failed to materialise.

Jascots Wine Merchants has reported that its customers are still receiving their deliveries on time, despite gloomy predictions about Olympics traffic chaos.

“We have been planning this for many months now but I am still surprised how smoothly it is all going,” said managing director John Charnock.

“We have completed four nights of deliveries all over London and we have not had a single hitch. Our drivers are reporting that traffic is relatively light and every single one of our clients, including pubs, restaurants and hotels, have been there on time and welcomed us with open arms.

“It is a very practical demonstration of partnership in action, we really feel like part of the same team.”

Around 68% of Jascots’ most valued London based on-trade clients are accepting night time deliveries but less than a third of those are actually mandated to accept night time deliveries because of the Olympic Route Network.

Bibendum was also well prepared for any transport chaos as it prepared a London 2012: Seizing the Opportunity PDF, which explains how London’s transport networks will be affected by the Olympics and how the company plans to manage any disruption.

David Gleave MW, managing director of Liberty wines told the drinks business, “Deliveries have been very smooth, and we haven’t encountered any major problems.  We are running a 24 hour operation, so most of our customers in central London and the City are receiving deliveries between 12 midnight and 05:00 in the morning.  The hard work that we put into planning Olympic deliveries with our customers has made it a fairly easy process.”

Toby Mason sales director at Heritage Wine explained to us that they took a flexible view on deliveries during the Olympics and it has seemed to pay off.

He said, “We struggled to find any definitive information prior to the Games, and so opted to take a flexible view on deliveries. We started by sending vans up to London, but with more drivers covering the areas in case traffic slowed things down, and with more drivers on standby for any night time work.

“But since the Games have started, traffic has been pretty good (August tends to be easier getting around in London anyway), and we have so far managed to continue with service as usual, without the need for any night work. We think that the authorities were attempting to keep roads as clear as possible during the days, and this seems to have worked. Our London customers have also reported that their other deliveries seem to be coming in as usual.”