Newell Brands is home to over 100 brands managed across 8 Business Units which include products in the Baby, Writing, Food and Home Appliances categories and more. Many of our retail customers carry multiple brands and products from our portfolio in their physical stores and online assortments. The breadth of Newell’s offering and complexities across our businesses often result in an inconsistent customer experience for our U.S. based distribution partners.

Additionally, shifting shopper behavior because of the pandemic and heightened consumer desire for omnichannel shopping experiences continues to disrupt the retail environment. For example, consumers have embraced the “Buy Online and Pick Up At Store” offering where they can pick up their products at a physical store within two hours of placing the order online. Our retailers expect our supply chain to support this demand and for our consumers, it fulfills our purpose of creating moments of joy when they can instantly receive a product.

Early last year, Newell Brands announced Project Ovid, a multi-year initiative that will transform our supply chain operating model in the U.S. and improve our end-to-end experience for customers. The new model will improve service delivery and support our customers’ omnichannel needs by creating shared distribution centers—called Service Centers—where orders from multiple product categories and brands can be combined and shipped on one truck. Our future structure, called the Newell Service Network, will streamline 23 unique supply chains to a single integrated supply chain in the U.S. and offer a simplified “One Newell” experience across the company. Customers can now combine orders across businesses and ship those from shared service centers in full truckloads.

The name “Ovid” was inspired by the famous Roman poet of the same name, who authored the work “Metamorphoses” which is a collection of stories about subjects who undergo a significant transformation. Newell is amid a “metamorphosis” of our operating model, end-to-end supply chain and customer and consumer experience. It’s an exciting initiative and its completion will position Newell Brands as a best-in-class partner.