Express Dairies, the British milk and groceries delivery company, has decided to stop offeringpostal and parcel deliveries to UK households in October, British newspaper The Observer reported.
Its withdrawal from “final mile” deliveries for CEP customers will leave Royal Mail with a de factomonopoly again since it was the only competitor with a nationwide delivery network.Express Dairies, owned by the Danish company Arla Foods, entered the postal delivery market in2002 delivering items such as books and catalogues using its fleet of home delivery milk floats – alight van – and its network of regional depots. But the company said that volumes were lower thanexpected, and that Royal Mail’s plans to introduce its own catalogue service and size-based pricingwould reduce the financial basis for the postal and parcels service.
The company’s main customer was TNT Mail. TNT chief executive Peter Bakker told the DailyTelegraph in early September that the Dutch mail, express and logistics group was consideringhiring its own force of postmen for final delivery of letters in the UK. Other postal operators inliberalised segments of the British postal market such as UK Mail (Business Post) and DHL all useRoyal Mail for final deliveries under a network access agreement.
