PROFILE HE PAYNE
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Next time the jam from your Tesco doughnut drips down your chin, don't blame HE Payne (Transport)—the Wyboston, Bedfordshire-based haulier only delivered it. There can't be many family businesses around making money out of supermarkets but HE Payne, with a turnover of £4.25m, can certainly boast that it is.
Are food hauliers exempt from a recession? Even during bad times, people still have to eat. About half of HE Payne's business is carrying fresh produce, chilled and frozen food, much of which is doughnuts, cakes and part-baked bread, from supplier to supermarkets. The company also delivers food packaging material nationwide, which it stores in its warehouse at Sandy. This 3,700m2 warehouse is leased and holds 6,500 racked pallets. Nationwide trunking operations currying toys, industrial equipment and automotive parts are
carried out for other customers.
HE Payne's core business has been food-related almost from the start. The firm was set up by Harry Edward Payne, the current managing director's father, in 1938. He started by making coal deliveries in the Wyboston area but, when the war began, a company that took local produce to the London wholesale markets was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence on the war effort, leaving a gap in the produce transport market, HE Payne stepped in and took over these deliveries, a decision that dictated the future direction of the company. Harry died in a shooting accident when his son, David, was four years old.
"Gran and Great-Gran carried on with two vehicles until 1958 when Dad was 15 and was told to "make or break" the business. He's still the managing director today," says Harry Payne's grandson and company director Richard. At just 31, Richard is being groomed to take over the running of the business, Under David's management in the 1970s and '80s the company made a foray into the construction industry delivering precast floors and stairs for Booth Concrete but stopped this when Booth crashed after relocating in the late '80s.
Then, when supermarkets changed people's eating habits in the late 1980s, giving them more frozen and convenience foods, HE Payne changed with them. "The main reason we've lasted so long is that we've got a good professional image. Our trucks are always immaculately turned out and we run to the letter. The days of cowboy operators going into the likes of Sainsbury and Tesco are gone," says Richard.
However, he is under no illusion about his worth to his customers. "Customer loyalty these days has gone out of the window. My father has a saying that you're only as good as your last load. If the customer says it wants one box or 20 pallets we have to deliver."
Double shifts Meeting such demanding delivery requests, along with running vehicles on backloads and double shifts, means having to operate a reliable fleet. For Richard, this means Volvos and Scanias are the preferred trucks: "Everyone who's into running trucks properly runs Volvos or Scan ias because they're the best on the market," he believes. "And they're still worth money at the end of five to eight years" Between 1981 and Christmas 1996 the entire fleet of 30 tractors was all-Volvo because of reliability and backup service. However, after some disappointment with service levels, HE Payne started buying Scanias 14 months ago. All vehicles and 50 trailers, half curtainsiders and half reefers, are owned outright. Richard is pleased with his new Scania 4 Series. "It's a very good product with excellent fuel returns and hopefully local dealer Derek Jones Commercials will look after us," he says.
So how does the business teinain so healthy in the competitive world of supermarkets? "We sell ourselves on customer service. It's always guaranteed. All the supermarkets now demand so much, especially with Just in Time deliveries. I'll have a customer phone up at 5 or 6pm saying he wants something in three hours. Never say no. If you say you can't do an urgent load that opens the door for another haulier. Because we're classed as a mediumsized haulage company we're vulnerable to the big boys because they could take 30% of our business overnight," explains Richard.
Hard work and commitment from employees play a part in the company's success. "Eighty per cent of our drivers have been with us more than 10 years. Some have been with us 25 to 30 years so we can't be doing things that badly. We must be good employers," says Richard. He takes pride in the fact that he has never employed an agency driver, feeling that he wouldn't have as much control over the business and his customers wouldn't welcome the idea. 'Good timekeeping' is a phrase we like to use. If a driver's got to be there at 08:00hrs we expect him there at 07:55hrs."
Still a family run business with Richard's father at the helm, the customer base has been built up over the past 40 years. His mother is company secretary: "She tells us if we can afford the new equipment." Sister Carol works part-time order picking and on stock control in the office at Wyboston and the transport manager is his father's cousin who has worked there for 34 years.
Management style is very much hands-on. "If a customer has got a problem they know they can pick up the phone and speak to me, father or a manager and the problem's solved. We still control everything which makes it a more personal relationship between us and the customer," says Richard.
Deep end
While David Payne was thrown into the business at the deep end at the age of 15, Richard has grown up with haulage as a mealtime conversation all his life. He joined the company in 1984 at 18 after a business management course at Mander College, Bedford. However, that has not made working with his family any easier. "I wouldn't recommend it to anybody. When you work for your family 100% effort is never good enough. They always expect that little bit extra. We do fall out, But there's no jockeying for top position. Father's top dog."
Richard expects to step into his father's shoes and become managing director within the next two years and is already making plans for the future of the company. He sees expansion into warehousing as the way forward. "This is more profitable because you can state a rate and know what your fixed costs are going to be. You cannot fix a rate or a cost for a vehicle over three years. You can never afford to look back. You always have to look forward. You never know what's round the corner."
L. I by Nicky Clarke FACTFILE: HE PAYNE (TRANSPORT) BASED: Wyboston, Bedfordshire. FOUNDED: 1938, by Harry Edward Payne. CONTACT: Richard Payne. FLEET: 21 38-tonne tractors of which 18 are Volvos: mix of FH12s, F12s and F 1 Os and also three Scania R-cabbed 400s. Nine rigids of which three are Scanias, two 17-tonners and one 24-tonner, and six 17-tonne Volvo Flits. Fifty trailers, mostly Lawrence David, equal number of curtainsiders and reefers. SPECIALITY CONTRACT: Chilled and frozen food to supermarkets. Food packaging distribution. TURNOVER: £4.25m.