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The Park champions stars across supply chain

08 September 2022 By Sarah Neish

A glitzy awards ceremony held last week by The Park shone a spotlight on every step of the drinks supply chain, highlighting the importance of this complex ecosystem.

It’s often said that a successful business is the sum of all its parts, but perhaps never more so than with The Park. The multi-award-winning drinks manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution facility in Bristol is a Goliath of an operation, encompassing more than 400 employees and with the capacity to package more than 30 million 9-litre cases per year.

With a business of such scale, and with so many moving parts, it’s important to press pause occasionally in order to celebrate extraordinary achievements and individual players that go above and beyond.

The fifth annual The Park ‘Supplier of the Year’ Awards, held at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel on Thursday 1st September, was a chance to do just this. Cherry-picking 11 winners from a list of 43 outstanding supply partners from all points of the drinks journey was no easy feat for Richard Lloyd, general manager, The Park.

“We wanted to recognise and celebrate our suppliers for their contribution towards making our operations so efficient and reliable over the past 12 months,” Lloyd said. “We believe it’s important to make everyone aware of all the different elements along the breadth of our supply chain. In a fast-paced world, it’s incredibly important to slow down, reflect on achievements and say a massive thank you.”

All suppliers of The Park receive a monthly scorecard throughout the year, and the award winners are “based on this quantifiable and measured performance”, says Lloyd.

Indeed, it is The Park’s meticulous attention to detail and nurturing of talent that helps make the company one of the most complete service solutions in the drinks industry today.

“When I see members of our team giving handwritten thank you notes and gifts to suppliers seated at their table during the awards ceremony, it becomes clear how real these relationships are right across the supply chain,” said Lloyd.

“We believe that these personal relationships help us to truly understand our suppliers and customers, which makes sure that the service we are offering is tailored to their needs.”

Lloyd also took the opportunity to applaud the many ways in which this year’s winners have contributed to The Park’s sustainability goals.

“These have come both through incremental improvements and bigger, transformational change such as removing 277 tonnes of CO2 from one waste stream from recovery to reuse,” he explained. “It’s the united power of The Park, coupled with its suppliers, that is lessening our impact on the planet.”

The complete list of winners from the The Park ‘Supplier of the Year’ Awards 2022 can be found below:

Highest Performer in Supply
Smurfit Kappa Yate

Highest Performer in Quality
Guala (Guala)

Highest Performer in Innovation
Smurfit Kappa Yate

Consistency Award
Smurfit Kappa IBI

Long Service Supplier
Martyn Rudd-Ardagh (Ardagh)

Exceptional Star Performance Award
Jacqueline Melanaphy (Encirc)

Sustainability Award
UPM Raflatac & Reflex

Collaboration Award
Lineview

Safety Excellence Award
ISM

Dry Goods Supplier of The Year
Smurfit Kappa Yate

Indirect Supplier Of The Year Award
Toyota