Lyreco announces today that it will stop its project to merge with Corporate Express that was released on May 21st. Both Lyreco and Corporate Express came to the conclusion that this project had very little chance to be voted positively by the shareholders of Corporate Express during the Extraordinary General Meeting scheduled on June 18th, mainly due to the increase of the public offer made by Staples on Corporate Express.

Even though this project will not complete, it has shown during the last few weeks how much Lyreco was unanimously recognised through its results, its model, its organisation, its people and its capability to develop sales with a very high level of service.

Lyreco remains number one in Europe and number one is Asia and plan substantial sales growth again in the future. Today even more than yesterday Lyreco is in an excellent position to delight its customers.

Based in Donnington Wood the company employs nearly 2000 people across the UK and Ireland, 650 of which are based in Telford.

It’s the 6th time WISE have won the award which was judged on a number of factors including business performance, structure and organisation of the company as well as the leadership of the management team.

Richard Ford, Managing Director for WISE said: “As a business we enjoyed a tremendous year in 2007 and that’s largely down to the people who work for us, they continue to do a consistently good job on a daily basis.  From great productivity in Logistics and Customer Services, superb cost control across our entire business, outstanding sales in our Corporate Accounts and Field Sales force, everyone played their part.”  We have a great team here in Shropshire and we are proud to have been recognised by the group worldwide in this way.”

Indeed, the company is no stranger to winning awards having picked up more than 30 assorted industry honours in the last five years for its products, staff training and its green credentials. 

For the second year running Lyreco’s own branded Impega paper has been recognised as Europe’s No. 2 office paper brand out of 21 brands that qualified.

The brand came second in the 8^th annual edition of the “Brand Equity Tracking Survey for Office Paper” which is compiled by Opticom International research.

This industry standard benchmark survey has been conducted among more than 4000 professional end-users within different sizes of organisation and located across 7 countries in Europe including; Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK

The research assesses the impact of individual office paper brands, benchmarks the leading brands against each other and evaluates the success of individual brand strategies over time through four indexed key drivers of brand equity:

1. spontaneous awareness
2. top-of-mind
3. qualities & associations
4. loyalty

This is great news for Impega who has regained this position for a second year.

Notes - Opticom International Research is a leading global market research and consulting firm.

Our own brand range, Impega has been further extended and features even more high quality own brand products such as Paper, Computer Supplies and Envelopes!

The Machine Consumables Section has been redesigned to make it easier for you to find the right consumable for your machine.

A large number of 100% recycled products including Envelopes, Paper and Filing products have been introduced and you can now buy 100% recycled Impega Premium Paper. 100% recycled envelopes have also been added in DL, C4 and C5 sizes.

The Catering, Hygiene and Safety section now features a new Fairtrade and Sustainable Development range, more environmental cleaning products and recycling bins.

To request your copy simply click here

In October Lyreco’s recycling went up to 86.4%.  The company also recycled 8 tonnes of paper as opposed to their usual 1 tonne.  The increase came about as a direct result of the audit, having changed to a waste partner to one that would take envelopes, magazines and pamphlets.

Following the audit, the company has also introduced a new staff recycling scheme at its Telford Head Office with some rather unusual figureheads - Recy-Clyde and his faithful dog Bin-Go.

Julie England, Quality, Security and Environment Manager for the company explains; “While the two characters we’ve created are a bit of fun and a visual focus our new recycling campaign they do have a serious message to convey.  They are both made out of products we can recycle here at Lyreco; including the stationery we use ourselves everyday and the plastic drinks bottles from our vending machines.”

She continued: “Earlier this year we carried out a comprehensive waste audit as part of our ongoing commitment to the environment.  This gave us an updated picture of the amount of waste we were sending to landfill and this information has now been passed onto staff in the form of a document and posters, setting out how the company will reduce these levels.”

In fact, even with its impressive recycling record Lyreco found they were still sending between 11-17 tonnes of waste to landfill every month.  Julie added: “We’re deliberately open about this figure because it acts as a marker and we know we can reduce it further.”

The waste document contains guidance on how staff can help to reduce the amount of waste they create, for example, it asks them to really consider whether they need to print out emails or throw away a piece of paper that has hardly been used.

However, the company has also set some recycling rules.  A number of general waste bins have been removed to encourage recycling, all plastic cups will now have to be recycled and as will cans after they have been crushed - no more cups or cans are allowed in general waste bins.

Landfill statistics for the UK are staggering.  Every year we produce 343 million tonnes of waste, 73% of which currently goes to landfill, even though 90% of it is recoverable, i.e. can be recycled, composted or used to generate energy.

To give this a visual image in less than 2 hours the UK produces enough waste to fill the Albert Hall.  That’s enough waste every 8 months to fill Lake Windermere, the largest lake in England. And in just 9 years’ time, all of the UK’s landfill sites will be FULL…

Julie concluded: “The changes have been warmly received by staff at Lyreco; like most of us they have been amazed and alarmed at the UK statistics and want to do their bit.  We were proud of what we were doing already, but recognise we can do more.  We’ve certainly provided staff with the means to make a difference - and should anyone forget their responsibilities, our cleaners will be checking bins to ensure we stay on the recycling track.

“To win the CILT People Development Award was a fantastic achievement. It was great to receive the vote from an independant panel of logistics experts that we are doing the right things, Throughout the year we run inductions, team leader courses and introduction to supervisory management courses which really help to develop our people” said Ian Lawson, Training and Development Director.

The Award entry identified how Lyreco develop the people involved in the supply chain. A key part of this was clarifying the actions and the benefits that are gained for both individuals and the business, focusing on the sustained investment that had taken place within distribution and the great results that had been achieved at the end of last year.

Tim Holmes has a wealth of industry experience; having spent the last 10 years working for some of the biggest names in the office supplies sector, including Acco and most recently Fellowes where he was Sales Director.

Tim’s role is a significant one at Lyreco and he will play a pivotal role in ensuring the company reaches its ambitious growth figures of £510 million in sales by 2010.

Richard Ford, Lyreco’s Managing Director comments “Tim’s career to date spans both the banking and office supplies sectors. Not only does he bring with him valuable industry experience but importantly a solid commercial understanding too. His wide ranging skills and knowledge will be vital in helping us achieve our goals and for developing the business as a team over the next three years.”

Tim will work within Lyreco’s 35-strong marketing department where his role will encompass product selection, cost price negotiation and pricing strategy. He will also oversee catalogue production for over 4,500 products as well as the development of promotional incentive programmes for the sales team.