Bloomsbury and HUKD mark 'the biggest distribution move in publishing history' with bagpipes and afternoon tea

Bloomsbury has completed “the biggest distribution move in UK publishing history”, after seven million books – more than 16,000 stocked titles – finished their relocation to Hachette UK Distribution (HUKD) by 1st April.

The news comes almost a year after the publisher announced its plans to join HUKD after 25 years with Macmillan Distribution.

To mark “the next stage of a brilliant partnership between Bloomsbury and HUKD”, Bloomsbury organised a tour of the HUKD operation in Didcot, Oxfordshire, which now features 250,000 feet of additional space and a new warehouse. Founder and chief executive Nigel Newton led a bagpipe procession through the centre on 27th March, after which HUKD and Bloomsbury staff sat down to an afternoon tea in the warehouse.

“The last time I was in Didcot was in July, 2000,” Newton said in his speech. “I had the idea to rent a train, rename it the Hogwarts Express and take it all over the country in a kind of mobile book signing session [...] there were about 20 of us from the Bloomsbury sales and marketing departments, plus Jo Rowling, me and my wife Joanna and our children. The first place we steamed to was Didcot.”

Speaking to The Bookseller, Marc Travers, director of operations at HUKD, described how the distributor works to avoid damages and reduce waste while packing and delivering books across the country. The boxes pass through various processing points before reaching their final destination, he explained, so the books are packed tightly using a thin plastic liner before being placed inside the cartons. This helps reduce damages by minimising “the lateral movement of the books in transit”. Moreover, the boxes pass through a machine that cuts them to the shape of the books inside, bypassing the need for chips or paper to fill out the empty space inside the packages.

Commenting on the completed move of Bloomsbury’s stock, HUKD CEO Matt Wright said: “The successful go-live on 1st April represents the next stage of a brilliant partnership between Bloomsbury and Hachette UK Distribution, and I feel extremely privileged that Nigel Newton and the team at Bloomsbury have put their trust in us. This move has been planned and delivered with extreme care over the last year. It is unprecedented in its scale and ambition, and I am immensely grateful to all of those involved in making it happen.”

David Shelley, Hachette UK and Hachette Book Group CEO, added: “We believe this is the biggest distribution move in UK publishing history and we feel very honoured that Bloomsbury made the decision to trust us with their business. Our aspiration since launching the new warehouse in 2018 has been to offer the best service in the UK market to our client publishers and bookshops alike and we’re looking forward to helping Bloomsbury – the fastest growing major publisher – reach millions of readers in the years to come.”