250 not out! Logistics Magazine reaches two milestones

However, members with longer memories may recall that it originally started its life as a print title. The magazine’s founding editor Matt Harrington looks back at progress since then.

Birth of a publication

It was September 2019. Boris Johnson had recently fulfilled his lifelong ambition to become Prime Minister of the UK and the Freight Transport Association, or FTA as it was commonly known, had relaunched Freight & Logistics, its monthly printed membership magazine, as Logistics Magazine.

As he said at the time, “Logistics Magazine builds on a long history of membership journals at FTA, stretching back almost 100 years. In 2016 our long-running Freight magazine was renamed Freight & Logistics to reflect the fact that FTA had begun to deal with broader logistical issues.

“That evolution has continued with the completely revamped Logistics Magazine. We aim to cover the big strategic issues facing the industry, along with the compliance issues so critical to the safety of all transport operations.”

That first issue of Logistics Magazine contained an interview with Greg Clark MP, the former Business Secretary, plus features on Co-op’s fleet of driverless delivery robots and Britain’s first HGV platooning trial.

The publication continued its successful run over its first six months, covering the hot topics of the time and securing interviews with such high-profile names as Chris Southworth, Secretary-General of the International Chambers of Commerce UK, and Alan McKinnon, Professor of Logistics at Kuehne Logistics University.

Pandemic pressures

However, by the time the new publication had published its sixth issue in March 2020, stormclouds were gathering on the horizon as the COVID-19 pandemic swept first Asia and then Europe and the UK. On 23 March, the Prime Minister told the British people that they must stay at home to curb the spread of the virus.

COVID-19 was the cover story for the seventh printed issue of Logistics Magazine in April 2020, and it proved to be its last. “As borders close, flights are cancelled, stock markets plunge, and all social contact is strongly discouraged, the issue of public health rightly sits at the top of the government’s agenda,” David Wells, then Chief Executive of FTA, said in his foreword.

Things escalated rapidly, with large sectors of the economy, such as retail and hospitality, effectively closing, and by then most of the business group’s members and staff were working from home. The last printed issue of Logistics Magazine, therefore, was arriving at members’ business addresses only to lay unread for weeks, if not months.

Digital makeover

With the outlook changing daily, FTA decided to pause the publication of Logistics Magazine, which gave the business the opportunity to review how it communicated with its members. And with more than three out of four readers already opting to read the publication in a digital format, this seemed like the perfect opportunity for the magazine to go 100% digital. This meant the magazine would be fully accessible, wherever members worked.

Now renamed Logistics UK, the trade body took the opportunity to review the frequency with which it communicated with members. To ensure it could deliver the very latest industry news and views to them it decided to increase the frequency of Logistics Magazine from monthly to weekly. The business group also created a new online Logistics Magazine portal – a searchable, content-rich section of the Logistics UK website, where members could read the latest industry news, interviews and features, as well as useful policy updates from its popular Enews service.

The first issue of the new weekly Logistics Magazine, published on 1 October 2020, led with the hottest issue of the day – Brexit. Although the UK had formally left the UK on 31 January 2020, in October it was still in a transition period to allow time to negotiate a trade deal between the UK and the EU. David Wells, Logistics UK’s Chief Executive, warned members to prepare for the strong possibility of a no-deal Brexit.

“Our motto throughout all this has been: prepare for the worst, hope for the best,” he said in October 2020, “I would encourage members, with our assistance, to prepare for a no deal. Understand what you need to do, understand the process and prepare for it.”

The (not so) terrible twos

Members quickly got used to receiving their news from Logistics UK on a weekly basis, and by the time Logistics Magazine celebrated its second anniversary in October 2022, the title had clocked up 100 issues. During those first two years, Logistics UK published almost 1,000 news stories, features, interviews and compliance articles on the online magazine portal which at that point had received more than a quarter of a million visits.

That same month the trade body passed another major milestone when it welcomed its 20,000th member, making it one of the largest business groups in the UK, as well as being named Trade Association of the Year at the Memcom Awards 2022, which meant that there was plenty to celebrate.

Editorial amendments

By the time the title had reached its 126th digital weekly issue, there was a change at the publication’s helm. Matt Harrington, the longstanding editor of both Logistics Magazine and its predecessor publication Freight & Logistics, had accepted an offer to join Logistics UK’s well-respected policy team to manage the content for its new Executive Membership programme.

Step forward Stuart Messham, who hailed from the world of lads’ mags, including Maxim UK magazine. Stuart saw Logistics Magazine through its next year, producing some well-regarded magazine supplements on the topics of decarbonisation and multimodal logistics before handing over the reins to current editor Tim Southwell, famously the co-founder (and later editor) of Loaded magazine as well as later editor of his own GolfPunk magazine title. During Tim’s stewardship, Logistics Magazine has grown its readership significantly, no doubt aided by his penchant for pithy puns and headlines (‘Freight expectations’, ‘Annie, get your gong’, and ‘Give a dog a drone’, to name but three).

In the autumn of 2024, Tim also launched a sister publication – The Green Miles, focused solely on the hot topic of decarbonising logistics. In his Editor’s Letter in the first edition, Tim explained that the title would feature “in-depth interviews and opinion pieces for those setting the pace in the net zero movement, as well as a myth-busting column to answer the big questions facing our industry.”

With the appetite for news and features on decarbonisation, technology and innovation, and global trade showing no signs of abating, it is a sure bet that both Logistics Magazine and The Green Miles will be around to celebrate passing many more milestones in the future.