Deciding where to manufacture your products is an important task, and can be very daunting with all the factors to consider, such as costings, shopping and more. Since the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, there has been major disruptions to supply chains; driving people to look into UK manufacturing sites.
Here at The Good Food Group, our product development team has over 15 years experience within the industry, creating hundreds of SKUs in the health & wellbeing categories. We’ve compiled our top pros and cons for manufacturing in the UK, so you have all the information you need!
Let’s talk the ‘pros’ of having your product(s) made in the United Kingdom, we’ve compiled our top 5 benefits:
- Face-to-face interactions, having your product manufactured in the UK, means you are much more likely to be able to meet your manufacturer in-person. This benefits the relationship greatly, as well as aiding communication.
- Faster delivery of products, an obvious advantage to having your products made in the UK is a potentially more efficient delivery process. You can have your product on the shelves, ready to sell, straight away.
- It’s better for the environment, by taking out the travel to and from an overseas manufacturer, and the shipping of samples and goods, you will significantly reduce the carbon footprint of your product and business overall.
- Supporting the UK economy, helping other UK businesses (such as manufacturers) means you are helping yourself too! Working together with other ‘local’ businesses helps boost the economy and creates employment for more people.
Now for the potential ‘cons’ of producing your product locally, here we’ve compiled 5 reasons why it could be better to head overseas:
- Overall cost of product, sourcing ingredients and manufacturing products in the UK can be costly, due to higher operation costs such as wages, energy costs etc.
- Legislation can get in the way, legislation does not always allow you to claim a product is manufactured in the UK which reduces the marketing exposure often associated with manufacturing in your local territory.
- Potential lack of manufacturers, a smaller pool of manufacturers for your specific product type may reduce the need for competitive pricing or even product options.
Our final thoughts:
It’s clear that sourcing from the UK and having products made in the UK, is a great selling point for consumers who trust & like the efficacy of UK made products, as a result of our high standards.
“The standards in which we operate are high, which means that quality of product can often be much better”.
Good Food Group, Founder & MD, Ross Carlin.
Also, whilst traditionally it has been the clearly cheaper option to manufacture overseas; however, there has been a shift in recent years that makes UK manufacturing more competitively priced.
From our experience, UK retailers are now looking towards local manufacturing and UK made products over international. A recent feature in The Grocer, stated that retail giant, Aldi, advised they were looking to replace international suppliers with more UK suppliers.