The tender, which will be run in partnership with Bupa's procurement team, follows a blind benchmarking of its existing UK print management contract and could open up the possibility of a direct to market approach, as adopted by Sky.

Neil Smith, managing director of Blue Buffalo, said: "The good thing about us is we’re print people and where we’ve done tenders in the past we do take the view of looking direct to manufacturers as well as the print management model.

"Where most people go in with a preconceived notion of outsource, offshore, or e-procurement, we’re very much for giving the customer a balanced measure of what the market can provide and what print management can provide.

"Our approach is to decouple the service element of print management and to measure the direct to market cost to allow the customer to see what is the cost of print management and what is the cost of print."

However, Smith highlighted examples where Blue Buffalo had awarded contracts to both printers and print managers in the past and stressed that there could be no foregone conclusion regarding the Bupa tender, or any other.

According to a statement on Blue Buffalo's website, the key areas of the tender are operational, marketing and transactional print, while other activities such as warehousing, pick, pack and logistics will also be incorporated.

Companies can register their interest in the tender via Blue Buffalo's website.