Styropack Wins Pioneer Packaging Contract

After a fiercely competitive tender bid, Styropack has won a £400k contract to supply bespoke EPS (expanded polystyrene) packaging to Pioneer in Castleford, Yorkshire.

The packaging is to protect Pioneer's 7th generation large plasma 42" and 50" televisions in transit from the warehouse to the customer's home. The new models will go into production in July and will be available in UK retailers in late summer 2006.

Pioneer's Castleford site supplies UK and Europe and it has seen a consistent rise in demand for its plasma televisions. Sales volumes in 2006-2007 are expected to significantly increase from the current 436/506 models, making this packaging contract an important business win for Styropack.

Matt Butterworth, Procurement Buyer, Pioneer, explains how the tender bids were judged: "We assess potential suppliers on four criteria, EQCD; Environment, Quality, Cost and Delivery. A company has to be 1SO 14001 accredited to become an approved Pioneer supplier. Styropack's Blackburn site has ISO 14001, plus the site performed very well in our own environmental audit.

"Styropack has supplied Pioneer for the past four or five years and I have found the quality of their product is very consistent. Price is, of course, an important part of the tender. We are operating in a very aggressive market place, so I was very impressed that Styropack was able to offer us a competitive price based on the increased volumes.

"The last criterion is delivery. Styropack has performed very well for us in the past, it has always provided a reliable service and I am confident that Styropack will continue to deliver all our packaging on time in the future."

Paul McCoy, Business Manager, Styropack is absolutely delighted by the win: "We worked closely with our design & development and operations teams to put together the best bid we could, so it was great to find out that we had won the business.

"There are an ever-decreasing number of major OEM's left in the UK, so every new business tender competition is a hard fought battle. I am very pleased that we came out on top this time."