Best of British – Our supply chain commitment

At Teleshore, we’ve made a commitment to manufacturing as much of our cemetery and crematoria product range as possible from within the UK.  We want to give our customers the best that Britain’s manufacturing industry can offer and we continually explore new supply chain partners who can help us with our mission.

We prioritise UK supply chains for a number of reasons; reducing supply chain miles, supporting UK manufacturing and sustaining jobs, better quality control, access to better materials and greater reactivity to changing needs are just some of them.

Best of British at Teleshore

All of our Teleshore grave shoring https://teleshoregroup.com/grave-shoring range for the UK market is designed and manufactured within the UK, made with aluminium from UK distributors in UK mills, with all component pumps and hoses also manufactured within the UK. Final assembly for our grave shoring happens at Teleshore, with our specialists ensuring that each item meets our rigorous quality control standards. Where we do not directly produce product, we prioritise a British-made product in nearly every instance. 

Sourcing products within the UK rather than looking to China (for example) massively reduces supply chain miles and makes a significant positive difference to our carbon footprint. This is a great reason in itself, but ‘buying local’ also enables us to see first-hand the production and quality of the products that we sell, as often as we need to. 

Contrary to what many believe, we have found that it is actually more cost-effective to manufacture within the UK. Our British manufacturing partners are able to offer more agile production processes; they are able to turn around smaller quantities of bespoke products in faster lead times than if we have to fill a container from China. This enables us to be more flexible and offer a wider range of bespoke products in smaller production runs for our customers than if we off-shored the supply chain.

Our British supply chain has also enabled us to improve the environmental credentials of our products. Our ranges of cremated remains boxes are handmade within the UK, where we can see and control the quality of the surfacing and ink that is used, ensuring that it poses no risk of high lead content. Teleshore cremated remains boxes will leach no pollutants into the soil if interred, making them a better environmental choice than some others available to the market.

Within our Gemini range of cemetery and crematoria supplies, only a minor percentage is now imported from outside the UK. Our British product ranges include:

Invariably, there is not always a suitable UK supplier for every product our customers require, so we look to the most suitable supply chain partner in this instance. For example, there is a growing demand within the UK for more traditionally American cemetery products such as burial chambers and vaults https://teleshoregroup.com/burial-chambers, slate urns and coffin lowering devices https://teleshoregroup.com/lowering-devices,that has led us to partner with US suppliers to meet this need within the UK. 

Where we sell to the market in Canada and the US, we have replicated our local supply chain policy in the region to ensure that we meet the standards of the local regulations and serve a highly-patriotic market which prioritises Canadian-made products.  

Our commitment to buying local and sourcing the best of British products continues, in our mission to remain the industry’s leading supplier to the bereavement services industry, based on both quality and service.

Geoff Harper