Where 20% of your uniform budget is really going
How an owned supply chain saved the UK’s largest retailer business 20% on its annual uniform and PPE spend
Budgets are tightening across every sector. Procurement teams are being asked to cut spend, protect service and justify every line, all at the same time.
Uniform and PPE rarely tops the list of places to look for savings. For large organisations, it should. Most large uniform contracts carry more cost than the garments themselves justify, and the reason sits in the supply chain behind them.
The problem: you’re paying for layers you never see
Most uniform suppliers run an outsourced model. Production is bought in from third-party factories. Fabric is single-sourced and held on a mill’s schedule. Orders queue behind other clients’ volume.
Every layer in that chain adds its own margin, and the buyer pays for all of them.
The same structure creates risk:
- No control over components. When fabric or trims run short, orders are delayed or go out of stock.
- Shared bottlenecks. Volume is concentrated in a handful of sourcing hubs, so one disruption hits many suppliers at once.
- Added duty. Garments from higher-duty origins carry extra cost. China-sourced garments, for example, attract 12% duty.
For large buyers, the result is higher cost and less certainty over delivery dates, at exactly the moment most organisations are being asked to do more with less.
The solution: remove the layers
We stopped running the outsourced model and built a supply chain we own from end to end.
- Sourcing. Gisa, our own sourcing company, buys the fabric.
- Design. Every garment is designed in-house.
- Cutting and manufacture. K&D, our own factory in Sri Lanka, holds fabric on site, so cutting starts on day one.
- Branding. Logos and decoration are applied in-house, never sent out to a third-party decorator.
- Shipping to the UK. The only step in the chain we don’t control.
What owning the chain means for you
- Full control over stock. We wholly own both GiSa and K&D, so we can protect stock availability rather than waiting on someone else’s priorities.
- No queuing. We set the production schedule. Your order doesn’t wait behind another client’s volume.
- Lower unit costs. Owning the factory lets us run longer production runs, which brings the cost per garment down.
- Resilience built in. Core volume is made in-house, with established relationships with other factories kept in reserve for surge demand.
- A stable, skilled workforce. K&D employs 2,000 people, all directly employed by us.
- Closer to the UK. K&D is 33% closer to the UK than most manufacturers.
Every layer we removed is margin our customers no longer pay.
The result: 20% off annual uniform and PPE spend
We recently onboarded the largest retailer business in the UK, and this is how we did it.
By moving their programme onto our owned supply chain, we reduced their annual spend on uniforms and PPE by 20%, while giving them more control over stock and more certainty over delivery dates.
20% saving on annual PPE and uniform costs
2,000 people directly employed at our factory
1 step in the supply chain we don’t control
Large buyers have been paying for the structure of the supply chain, not the quality of the garment. Owning every stage is how we give that money back.
Jason Malt – Sales & Marketing Director – Workwear Uniform Group
How would this work at your scale?
Every uniform programme is different. If you’d like to see where the savings could sit in yours, our New Business team will walk you through it, with no obligation.
Contact our New Business team using the form below.
