Orders and Supply Chain

As you may well be aware the UK are currently suffering from a shortage in lorry drivers, this is also affecting The Sausage Man. Below is a short update on the current situation:

• We are seeing delays in our courier partners mainly with pallets or deliveries to remote areas.
• Allow 3 days for delivery, order in advance where you can.
• Order little and often (if you can).
• If you are in a 48 hour shipping location we recommend ordering early in the week.

Full Explanation Below:

Dear customer,

As always, we pass our thanks across for your continued business and interest in our products. We are working on improving and expanding our range all the time, so please do stay connected and check for updates about the new products which are available.

This message is primarily to communicate about logistics and supply chain challenges presenting themselves to the industry at the present time. You may have read or heard in the news recently about the severe shortage of lorry drivers and the difficulty in filling vacancies for warehouse, van, and lorry driving roles in the UK right now. Unfortunately, our supply chain is no exception to this rule. We would like to take this opportunity to advise you that we and our delivery partners are doing our absolute best to ensure as little disruption as possible, but we are aware delays are inevitable.

We would like to remind all customers to order as far in advance as possible of any events they have scheduled. We do offer next day delivery, however, can do nothing if something goes wrong in this scenario. If you order a minimum of 3 days in advance and a delivery is delayed, it still has time to arrive with you with plenty of time. If there is another kind of disruption, we may even have time to take a different action and resend the goods where necessary. We cannot offer compensation for delays – so please help us to ensure we can deliver the best possible service by giving us as much notice as possible, and as much time as possible to rectify any errors with the courier networks.

For our commercial customers ordering larger volumes, over 8 cases of sausages or 16 cases of rolls (or a mixture e.g. 4 cases of sausages and 8 cases of rolls)- you will be used to the ambient pallet network by now. This is one area which is very vulnerable to the lorry driver shortage in the UK and we are seeing increased delivery times, delays, and some regions have even been completely overwhelmed to the point of closure at points this year. If you are in a 48-hour delivery area, or a difficult to reach area of the UK (far from our base in Dartford, on a coast, or not on a main trade route) we strongly suggest ordering early in the week. We have already started advising some of our very remote customers that we can only dispatch on a Monday or a Tuesday to ensure the goods arrive without an added weekend delay. We consider this good practice for all customers to follow as a rule.

Please bear in mind there is a limit to the number of parcels we can send in one consignment (to a single address), using our DHL parcel delivery service. If you can make more regular orders for smaller amounts rather than an extremely large order once in a while- this would mean you can negate the need for a pallet. We recognise this isn’t cost efficient or the solution to every scenario, however if you are more comfortable and are able to do this- please do.

For those customers using the courier network, it has been steady in its reliability. That isn’t to say it won’t change, especially around peak times and weekends.

Still, the option to collect from our warehouse in Dartford is available, and for especially large orders we can get quotes from the temperature-controlled pallet network on request. Please be aware the parcel and normal pallet network are both ambient services so we can make no guarantees about the temperature of goods on arrival, especially in the event of a delay- whereas if you use the temperature-controlled network, the cold chain is guaranteed.

Finally, if you have smaller wholesalers you use near where you are based, and you would like them to stock our products, we will welcome any recommendations or introductions. One way to completely negate the courier issues above is to create more local collection points, if you know someone who might be interested and you can help us demonstrate demand to them, please get in touch- we would love to hear from you.

With our best wishes,

TSM Ltd