Coventry-based Pooling Partners, which produces and pools sustainable wooden pallets, has landed a major deal with Minky Homecare to move thousands of its laundry and household products through the UK supply chain.

Established in the UK in 1941, Vale Mill (Rochdale) Ltd, trading as Minky Homecare, is the market leader in the UK laundry sector producing everything from ironing boards to laundry airers, as well as being Royal Warrant holders to the Queen and the Prince of Wales.

Eighty per cent of its manufacturing originates at its state of the art production centres in the North West of England from where they are shipped to high-end retail brands.

The family-owned business appointed Pooling Partners, after it was faced with a problem that involved publically airing its distribution challenges.

Minky Homecare  head of supply chain Tony Close said: “We send our product on pallets to a leading household name retailer, but under our previous supplier, at least two out of every 10 pallets were rejected and we were fined every time there was a quality issue with the pallet on arrival. This was becoming both a cost and quality assurance issue for us as we very much wanted to protect our reputation with such an important customer.  So we decided to switch pallet supplier to Pooling Partners.

“Since we made the change, we have received no charges. We are now in a position of trust with Pooling Partners and we no longer have to check every pallet before it goes to our customer. This has helped to renew trust and streamline the whole process, as well as reduce our costs.

“If an email is sent to Pooling Partners it is answered straight away and our calls are also dealt with promptly. This is a huge improvement on where we were and my only regret is that we did not make the change earlier on.” 

Pooling Partners UK and Ireland director Phil Storer added: “Minky is a huge name in the UK market which came to us because of some potentially brand damaging issues it was facing regarding pallet quality.

“Customer care is never really about cost, but, like Minky products, all about good housekeeping and getting it right first time, every time. We pride ourselves on making quality a key factor for us because rejected pallets means poor supply chain processes further downstream. I am delighted that Minky has felt confident enough with the service we offer and that we have been able to resolve the issues faced.”