Global freight forwarder Woodland Group has opened a strategic 155, 000 sq ft fulfilment centre at its Chelmsford, Essex headquarters and main depot to serve both UK and overseas clients.

The multi-million pound investment has been made to satisfy client demand for Third Party Logistics (3PL) services, says Luke Fermor, Woodland Group Fulfilment Manager. “We invested a seven-figure amount into the new fulfilment centre in response to customer demand for 3PL services. We took what was a small, clean yet basic transit shed and spent nine months developing it into a state-of-the-art facility.”

Woodland now offers a range of services at the site, including pick and pack, insertions, hand bagging, storage, re-packing, export packing, jacketing and re-jacketing, palletisation, shrink wrapping, magazine packing, product re-work and bar coding.

Fermor adds: “Our 3PL fulfilment centre operates as a full back office for our clients, who also use our various import services to ship their goods in from source. We have taken on 28 dedicated staff to operate the facility and to support its growth. Shippers that have taken advantage of our added-value services are based all over the country, and as far away as Australia and Hong Kong.”

Cargo handled at the fulfilment centre can be dispatched by pallet throughout Woodland’s national and international network or third party courier companies.

Fermor concluded: “Clients can take advantage not only of our brand new, high-tech state-of-the-art facility and innovative IT systems but they can then feed their products and cargo into our first class national and international network for delivery both here and abroad.

“We feel that having all parts of the jigsaw covered in-house, with global import freight services and bespoke fulfilment requirements suited to each customer, is something very special to offer.”