Cambridge Commodities Ltd’s bonded warehouse is reducing costs from Brexit and improving cashflow

Cambridge Commodities has entered a new era of bonded warehouse operations. The leading nutritional ingredients supplier is almost entirely reliant on imported goods for sale in the UK and Europe, and the bonded warehouse will help reduce the negative overheads impact of leaving the European free-trade zone. It will also support the cashflow improvement objective that any growing business has.

Tom Stevens, Cambridge Commodities’ Operations Director, explained the reasoning and benefits of the new set up: “About a third of our sales are in the European Union. To satisfy demands since leaving the EU we have put working capital into holding stock both in the UK and the Netherlands (NL) where, like other UK companies reacting to Brexit, we’ve established a warehouse using a third party provider. This inevitably added overhead cost, but the investment enabled us to maintain and grow our trade in Europe without the bureaucratic and import duty challenges of the new trading arrangements hitting us so hard.

Now with our bonded warehouse operation we can begin to reduce our stockholding in NL reducing working capital and storage overheads. Our UK warehouse in Ely will be better utilised and jobs can be returned to the UK from NL.

“Our bonded warehouse operation means we are now only liable for VAT and duty payment when goods imported under bond leave our warehouse. If selling to a UK customer the duty is paid as determined by the product’s specific commodity code, but if we re-export then only the duties and taxes due in the customer’s country are payable.”

Instrumental in the change was Cambridge Commodities’ Head of Logistics and Trade Compliance, Irina Purcell: “Setting it all up has been a complex team effort with our Logistics, Trade Compliance, Finance, IT, and Operations teams working closely with international trade and customs management experts Britannia Solutions, to get this milestone project up and running.”

About Cambridge Commodities

Cambridge Commodities is the leading supplier of nutritional ingredients and product solutions to the sports nutrition, food and beverage, animal nutrition and health and wellbeing industries. We import nutritional ingredients from all over the world and hold stock of over 2500 materials on-site. We bring the newest ingredients to market, drive trends and are constantly looking forward to supplying products that meet the demands of consumer-driven marketplaces. Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, and all our processes are designed to help them create marketleading products through our commitment to quality, service and innovation.

www.cambridgecommodities.com

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