BIFA Awards
successfully deliver all the donated items. Its Dover office liaised with Customs to expedite the project, for instance, while a colleague in Ukraine ensured that drivers were taking the safest routes to get there and that the donations reached the places where they were needed the most within the war zone. Anchor Freight explained: “This was a real team effort, with our Ipswich team coordinating the collections and despatches of the aid with the help of local hauliers Bacton Transport and Dan Ashford, and our Dover office using all its knowledge and network to ensure clear passage to the Polish warehouse hub in Mlyny close to the Ukraine border so that Andrew Pituley, our colleague in Lviv, could organise Ukrainian hauliers to collect and distribute to the hospitals and charities within Ukraine.” Community effort The BIFA award is recognition not only for the excellent Anchor Freight team who gave so much of their time, but for all the volunteers that turned up to help, and the amazing generosity of local organisations and the wider community of Suffolk who donated so generously, the company said. From Lviv, Pituley added: “When a great team gets together, miracles happen.” Anchor Freight and its parent company, One Construction, have always been heavily involved in supporting charities, said managing director Alex Davis, who pointed out: “If you are lucky enough to be working and you can give back, why not?” Anchor Freight’s Ukraine project is over for now, as it has become increasingly difficult to ensure the safety of drivers on routes into the country. More recently, though, Anchor Freight sent several pallets of aid to assist victims of the earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria in February 2023. l Anchor Freight has four UK offices, located in Dover, Felixstowe, Glasgow and Ipswich. It provides Customs brokerage, global freight solutions, VAS (value-added services) warehousing and UK distribution services. The company plans to open a fifth office in Ireland.
Organising the flood of donations was a real team effort
Making miracles happen
Going the extra mile can mean more than delivering excellent customer service, or meeting a tight deadline. In Anchor Freight’s case, it meant supporting the people of Ukraine whose lives have been devastated by war. BIFA recognised these efforts with its Extra Mile Award 2022
A nchor Freight’s support for those suffering in Ukraine “started as a small idea that snowballed”, according to UK freight manager Hannah Keegan. She explained: “In partnership with local Suffolk charity GeeWizz, we asked for donations of clothing, blankets, medical supplies, toiletries and so on – and we were inundated with aid. We had originally thought we would send one truck but we ended up with more than 40 truckloads.” Vital medical equipment In all, Anchor Freight was directly responsible for sending more than 500 tons of aid to Ukraine. Shipments included vital medical equipment and generators to help keep hospitals running when mains power supplies failed. “We relied heavily on volunteers to help load the vehicles,” Keegan said. “Friends, family and local people who had heard about what we were doing on the radio – even
Alex Davis, managing director of Anchor Freight (left) and Hannah Keegan,
a retired man who was 86 years old. The community really came together.” The company also helped other carriers to deliver hundreds of tons of aid using the robust supply chain it had set up. Anchor Freight called on expertise from across – and outside – the organisation to Descartes gives international freight forwarders and shippers a Extra Mile Award
UK freight manager
single Customs platform to import and export freight across international borders. Descartes’ Customs, freight and transport management software is used by most of the major forwarders and shippers in the UK to minimise speed of entry with single data entry for multiple countries, boosting productivity and improving data.
16 | September 2023
www.bifa.org
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