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Michael Burgess, Jim Quantrill, Michael Lorimer, Denys Shortt, Ray O'Donoghue, Johnathan Berry, Charles Shortt

Oxfordshire health and beauty distributor expands

13 March 2018

The UK’s largest distributor of health, beauty and household brands is expanding its Head Office in Banbury, Oxfordshire following a £5 million funding package from Barclays.

DCS Group, which was founded in 1994 by Denys Shortt OBE, moved to the 25-acre site on Noral Way in Banbury last year but already has plans for expansion. This includes the addition of 40,000 sq ft of warehousing to hold 9000 pallets to accommodate their ever increasing operations as well as a 500 pallet area to store a range of products requiring constant temperature control.

DCS Group was founded in 1994 by the current Chairman and Chief Executive, Denys Shortt and operated from a stable block in Buckland in the Cotswolds. The business opened its first commercial premises in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2001 before adding a manufacturing plant in 2005. Whilst manufacturing continues at the Stratford-upon-Avon site, the company outgrew the 11-acre site which instigated their move to Banbury last year.

The company boasts some of the world’s biggest companies as suppliers including Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Colgate, Johnson & Johnson, PZ Cussons, Reckitt Benkiser and SC Johnson and delivers to over 500 retail chains and wholesalers in the UK.

In 1998, the company established its own label beauty brand ‘Enliven’ which is today is exported to over 75 countries around the world.

Commenting on the expansion Chief Executive Denys Shortt said: “The continued growth of the company has resulted in the need to expand the warehousing at our new Head Office. Barclays approach to working with DCS over the last 7 years has been a vital ingredient to the continued success of the company. Barclays close relationship and understanding of the business and its challenges has ensured they have provided flexible facilities to match our growth as well as our future ambition.”

He continues “This will enable us to continue to offer a first class service to our clients as well as creating a number of warehouse and office jobs. Our category approach continues to deliver accelerated growth for brand owners and we see great opportunities to improve sales and execution of their brands.”

Jim Quantrill, Relationship Director at Barclays Corporate Banking commented: “DCS has enjoyed 23 years of successive growth which is testimony to the hard work and vision of Denys and his team. This continued growth is not only great for the company but also the staff and the local area where jobs are being created.”

The company has an ambitious strategic plan for future growth and aims to become a £300 million company in the next five years and create employment opportunities for a further fifty people.

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