Month: July 2021

At the end of July, Simply Doughnuts added another prestigious award to its growing collection.

The 2021 Made in the North West Awards took place on the evening of Wednesday 28 July at the Lowry Hotel in Salford. During the event, judges announced Simply Doughnuts as the winner of the Food & Drink Award category.

They noted that, as a company, we were “intriguing, committed to sourcing local ingredients and really innovative.”

Organisers commented that the event, which was held in partnership with the Department for International Trade, “acknowledged and celebrated the cream of North West manufacturing, who are among the most pioneering and dynamic in the world.”

The Food & Drink Award was one of the two most hotly contested categories on the night, featuring a total of eight finalists.

“We’re delighted to have been named as a winner,” said Simply Doughnuts founder and managing director Shiraz Master. “The last two years have been challenging by anyone’s standards, and we – like everyone else –  have been busy adapting our strategies to cope with the pandemic. I’m very proud of the efforts that everyone in the Simply Doughnuts team have made over this period, and this latest award is very much a recognition of all that hard work.”

At the beginning of July 2021, British newspapers and trade magazines ran stories about how a national shortage of HGV drivers has been causing severe supply chain disruption across the UK.

On 1^st July, for example, The Grocer wrote that “A host of major food and drink manufacturers have issued warnings to their retail and wholesale customers over their service levels as the impact of the driver shortage becomes more tangible.”

On the following day, the BBC reported that a combination of Brexit and the Covid pandemic has led to a shortage of 60,000 lorry drivers. As a result, the country is now witnessing a reduced availability of many common foodstuffs as well as other commodities including fuel.

Supermarkets have issued notices to suppliers noting delays of up to 12 hours in distribution depots and warning that short shelf-life products might be at particular risk.

The present difficulties highlight an important advantage of products with extended shelf lives. If a product has a shelf-life of just 48 hours and it spends 12 of those delayed at a distribution centre, then it’s clear that retailers will face greatly increased risks of that product spoiling before sale. Thus, it’s unsurprising that supermarkets and other retailers are expressing concerns about short-lived products such as bread, fresh cakes, sandwiches and confectionery.

By contrast, longer-lived products minimise those risks and allow business to continue much more as normal. In the case of our doughnuts, 12 hours in a distribution centre is only a small fraction of their 27-day minimum shelf-life, and should create negligible additional risk.

The UK’s present distribution challenges, coupled with a general increase in awareness about the need for waste-minimisation, are all helping to highlight the commercial and environmental benefits associated with longer shelf-life products.