Details are still being negotiated but Polestar chief executive Barry Hibbert trumpeted an 80m contract win at the firm's annual staff conference last week, and PrintWeek can reveal that it is for the Telegraph weekend supplements, currently printed web offset at St Ives Peterborough and gravure at Gruner+Jahr's DD+V plant in Germany.
St Ives' contract for the 820,000-850,000 run Sunday magazine expires next May, while DD+V's 1.2-1.3m run Saturday deal lasts until September. Each also has an accompanying television and radio guide.
"We're delighted to announce that we are moving to Polestar, but it is no reflection on St Ives and Gruner+Jahr, who've done an excellent job for us neither has delivered late and we haven't had to pay any repro compensation," said Telegraph group executive editor Brenda Haywood.
The Telegraph will benefit from savings in switching from web to gravure, and will save on transport and logistics by printing everything in the UK.
St Ives Web managing director David Emeny said: "Clearly we are disappointed to lose this contract, but we are confident we can find work to replace it. It's a big job but it's not the be all and end all for that factory. Peterborough is often turning work away. We will probably go for three or four weeklies rather than one large job."
The win increases the pressure on Polestar to get the Sheffield site up and running on schedule. It is due to begin printing for Associated Newspapers by June at the latest.
Parts of the first press and Ferag system began arriving at the site this week, as did the pre-press plating and polishing baths. "The first press will involve 47 lorries and the first four arrived on Monday [6 December]", said project director Mike Young. "There will be two a day from now on, and by Christmas it will largely be here it's nice to see some equipment going in it's looking like a print factory now."
There is a further interesting dynamic to the situation, as Polestar was planning to work jointly with St Ives Peterborough to produce the Weekend supplement for Associated Newspapers in the initial stages of the contract, until Polestar's new 64pp Goss web at Colchester comes on stream.
"We'll make a decision about that in the next couple of weeks," said Emeny.
[o] At Polestar's staff conference and Star Awards the firm's new chairman Thomas Middelhoff brought the house down by referring to his former employer Bertelsmann as "silly bloody Germans" for planning to set up a gravure plant in the UK. See separate story on the award winners here.
Story by Jo Francis
