Accolade Wines, the leading global new world wine company, wins “World Class Manufacturer of the Year” at the Manufacturer MX Awards in Birmingham, UK.
This prestigious award is a first for the company and for the manufacturing industry in the UK, as never before has this accolade been awarded to a drinks manufacturing company. It is the third coveted award for the company, having previously won Sustainable Manufacturer in 2010 and in 2012 the Leadership and Strategy award. Accolade Wines’ manufacturing facility, Accolade Park, first opened its doors in 2009 and now employs over 500 people and produces some 25 million 9L cases of wine every year.
With 6 packaging lines and the capability of producing 1200 bottles of wine every minute, this state of the art facility is the only dedicated wine bottling facility in the UK. Accolade Park is also home to the largest wine warehouse and distribution centre in Europe (80,000m²).
This latest award was given to Accolade Wines for the sustained achievement of world class manufacturing standards across clearly defined strategic pillars with evidence of ownership for continuous improvement from the most senior level to the shop floor. Commenting on this achievement, Richard Lloyd, General Manager Accolade Park states:
“To win ‘World Class Manufacturer of the Year’ against competition like Rolls Royce and Siemens is external recognition of the highest order and should be cherished by everyone who makes Accolade Park the special place it is. This industry recognition is the result of years of effort and dedication developing every aspect of Accolade Park. Our people and our teams daily drive improvement through any number of forums with a constant passion that is infectious to anyone who visits the site. We should be very, very proud of this achievement.”
For 17 years The Manufacturer has been the leading publication for the manufacturing industry. The Manufacturer has a global audience of over 4.5 million people and has been classified as a “safe news provider” alongside trusted voices like the BBC. This year the publication joined forces with the Institute of Mechanical Engineers to create the UK’s largest manufacturing awards programme. With over 43 independent judges and assessors, Accolade Wines was one of 50 company finalists. The TMMX awards recognise and celebrate the strength and diversity of UK manufacturing.
Accolade Park now produces 92% of all the wine the company sells in the UK and over half of all the company’s wine sales in Europe and is setting new standards in wine production and packaging quality.
Accolade Wines Chief Executive Officer, Paul Schaafsma says:
“This really is an incredible achievement for both Accolade Wines and the wine industry as a whole and reinforces our reputation as a market leading provider of new world premium and commercial wines. Our company has some of the world’s most highly regarded and respected wine makers in the industry today and I know they all believe in the capability of Accolade Park to ensure the wines they nurture from the vineyard to the winery reach our end consumer in first class condition. It is because of the passion, skill and expertise in the team at Accolade Park that country of sale production has become what it is today. Across all geographies we are very proud to be setting new industry standards which we hope others will follow”.
Expanding on why he believed Accolade Wines was judged to be a World Class manufacturer, Lloyd continues:
“Our belief in the Lean approach has led to the development of our people and systems at Accolade Park and has resulted in our continuous improvement and innovation. Our strategy creation methodology continues to deliver both strategic high level projects and local innovations. The new bottling line installation showed exemplary in house project management; delivering on time and on budget. Our new Innovation Suite is a purpose built space where we can create shopper experiences, explore innovations and ideas and bring all our technical partners together. We understand both the customer and end consumers packaging requirements and this coupled with supplier strategic partnerships that have provided software innovations and a collaborative working approach has meant we’ve been able to execute industry leading packaging innovations that make us a “go to” wine supplier for our far reaching customer base. Finally and crucially we are delivering to the customer when we say we are with an ever improving ‘On Time in Full’ trend”.
