London City Bond sits quietly behind the scenes of the drinks industry, but during Covid-19 it’s been the sector’s emergency service that everyone has relied on to carry on doing business.
Covid-19 has brought us all together like never before. Regardless of the size, scale or reputation of your business we have all been hit like a frying pan in a Tom & Jerry cartoon during the Covid-19 crisis.
It has meant businesses and individuals have had to respond like never before to the extraordinary times we have all had to live through. Trying to keep businesses and teams going remotely, whilst for weeks, we were all stuck at home.
But in order for all the retailers, specialist wine merchants, and the wine and drinks distributors that supplied them to keep trading, they needed one company above all others to keep going – London City Bond. The company that held the lock and key to all their wines and drinks sitting in bond waiting to be released and sold.
It was not just the 8 million or so cases of 2m square feet of HMRC tax-approved warehousing that was crucial at this time, it was LCB’s state-of-the-art logistics system, backed up by 300 plus of its own vehicles, that could get wines out to consumers all over the country and allow wine businesses to make hay with the enormous increase in wine sales during lockdown and beyond. A logistics system capable of handling close to 25,000 nationwide deliveries a week in normal circumstances.
The welcome sight of a LCB van arriving with a delivery…
Time and again throughout the crisis retailers, importers and distributors have all cited LCB as being fundamental to them remaining in business over the last few months. When the lockdown first came into place towards the end of March the fear, for most, was that it simply would not be possible to get wines delivered even if customers could buy them online.
But thanks to the fast response of the LCB team it meant specialist, independent wine merchants, in particular, were able to swing into action and take advantage of the huge spike in demand for their wines.
So onbehalf of those wine companies that have been able to take advantage of LCB’s expertise at this time – and the leadership of its senior team headed up by Ben Jones and Alf Allington – The Buyer would like to ‘Raise a Glass’ for all their efforts.
