Baby Bundle Supply, Packing and Distribution

The Welsh Government will shortly be commencing a procurement exercise for the sourcing of products, assembly, storage and delivery of Baby Bundles in Wales, the Contract Notice will be advertised separately to this PIN notice later in the year. Baby Bundles is a Welsh Government initiative to provide a free baby bundle to expectant parents as a ‘welcome to the world’ gift, comprising of a range of products for the child’s first months. The purpose of this Prior Information Notice is to conduct a soft market testing exercise to determine the availability of organisations who are able to provide this package of services on behalf of the Welsh Government.

The contract will have the potential for a requirement of up to 25,000 to 35,000 bundles per year. It is important to note the projected number of baby bundles is subject to change.

The Welsh Government will be seeking to contract with a single organisation/consortium to provide (or sub-contract to provide) the following likely elements of the Baby Bundles initiative. (Please note this is early thinking and detailed specification of full requirements will be provided at the time of issuing the Contract Notice later in the year):

1. Co-ordination of the number of bundles from the online registrations in compliance with GDPR regulations. Order processing and acknowledgements.
2. Sourcing the contents for inclusion and the packaging for the bundles, and then assembling the bundles (As an example, a list of the type of items that may be required in the baby bundles, together with detailed product specifications that we would expect to be met is attached for information in the document titled 'Items for Inclusion in Baby Bundle'. Please note the items included in the example list are likely to change). Suppliers must be able to source all items and each item must meet the specified industry safety and EC standards and accreditations. Product testing.
3. Delivery - responsible for scheduling and confirming deliveries. The co-ordination of delivery in an environmentally friendly way.

4 Demonstrating existing, well developed supply chains, established freight and border arrangements.

5 Storage of all items and the bundles.

6 Ensuring they have the facility (or can sub-contract) to ensure items and/or packaging feature particular designs.

7 To determine how the bundle will be presented e.g. the outer packaging. It is desirable that the packaging be environmentally friendly.

8 Ensure that a bilingual customer contact point/helpline is made available and all enquiries, customer support, and/or cancellations of bundles are dealt with in the language of preference (English/Welsh).

The contract is intended to be initially for 2 years, with an option to extend for one further year. We envisage the successful contractor will be ready for distribution of the baby bundles from February 2023.