Abbey Logistics Group has seen a significant improvement in its financial performance over the past six months, despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, chief executive Steve Granite said this week.
The improved performance follows major structural and operational change, contract renewals and a number of major deals with new customers.
Granite said: “Performance in the current financial year to June 2020 has seen a major improvement on previous years and a return to profitability since earlier this year.
“I am incredibly proud of what our team has achieved since we made structural and operational changes in late 2018, and not only are we back to where we should be financially, our service to customers is back to industry leading standards and our workforce is motivated and engaged.”
Granite said customer confidence was high, evidenced by recent contract renewals and new business wins which will be announced shortly, including the renewal of two major customer contracts.
Staff morale has remained strong throughout the pandemic, said Granite.
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“Our workforce engagement levels are the best I’ve seen, and we’ve supported our key workers through Covid-19 with increased sick pay, a bonus to be paid at Christmas and support including health packs and online fitness classes to recognise their hard work and dedication to keeping the UK’s food supply chain flowing,” he added.
The group is also boosting its fleet with the delivery in September of 52 tractor units from DAF and Mercedes Benz whilst planning further investment in the fleet this year as sales continue to grow.
The vehicles, which are a mix of DAF CF and XF and Mercedes Benz’s latest generation Actros, are expected to go into service in September and will operate across Abbey’s large fleet of bulk liquid and powder road tankers.
Most of the new vehicles are dual purpose, equipped with pumps for liquid products and blowers for powder or granulated products, to give the fleet greater flexibility.
Gary Lawson, Abbey Logistics national fleet manager said: “Following extensive trials of these vehicles, we felt each model would benefit our fleet and our customers in different ways depending on the type of work it would be doing.
“Our operations require specialist vehicles with specific equipment needed for the sensitive products we carry, and we were very pleased with the performance of both the DAF and Mercedes Benz vehicles in our trial and look forward to taking delivery in September.”
