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• When Adnams Brewery of Southwold, Suffolk recently put a
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new ERF tractive unit into service, it doubled the size of its artic delivery fleet.
"The new unit was intended as a replacement for our existing ERF, which was nearly 10 years old," says distribution manager Roger Clifford. "Then on reflection we decided that our present level of output could probably support a second outfit, so we've refurbished the old ERF and kept that on the road as well." That attitude illustrates the measured expansion that is under way at this traditional regional brewery company. Norfolk and Suffolk are Adnams' heartland; most of its 65 tied houses are in the two counties. But since the mid-eighties the company has steadily increased its coverage and now has outlets throughout southern England, out to the West Country, the Midlands and even parts of the North. This expansion has posed logistics problems that might have disconcerted much larger producers, but Adnams has tackled them by a flexible and pragmatic approach.
Its core fleet, apart from the two attics, comprises 10 rigids which primarily serve the company's home area. They also work further afield, but here they are backed up by a complex series of delivery contracts and reciprocal deals with other brewers and distributors.
NO SPACE
We simply don't have the space for any major increase in our own fleet size," says Clifford. "As we move to larger consignments there's no doubt the artics make economic sense; but our main expansion has been achieved by links with other suppliers." The company has been brewing in the picturesque seaside town of Southwold for exactly 100 years, and the brewery is immediately behind the main shopping street. The sea front is barely a hundred metres away, and immaculately preserved Georgian and Victorian buildings line its other flanks, Even the modern warehousing and office complex, opened 10 years ago just down the road from the brewery, is boxed in on all sides. "We can get all our delivery vehicles in here at night, but we'd have to think very carefully about adding many more," says Clifford. In the South-East Adnams has shouldered much of the responsibility for its own expansion. On a greenfield site in Norwich, for instance, it has set up a cash and carry operation called Clipper. Two 7-5-tonners are based here to supplement the direct deliveries made to customers from Southwold.
At Maidstone in Kent, Adnams now controls a soft drinks business, which helps with Adnams' distribution as well as providing the company with soft drinks lines for sale under the Adnams name. At Hounslow in West London, Adnams has a long-standing share in a distribution business called Manifold. These two bases help serve Adnams' customer base in greater London, using a self-contained operation known as Brewer's Dray. Each of the two bases has an Iveco Ford Cargo running on a local Operator's Licence in their own yellow livery, but they are ultimately controlled from Southwold. Telesales are also run directly from Southwold, while stockholding and delivery are handled locally.
Elsewhere, independent distributors and other brewers are playing an increasing role in Adnams' distribution. For instance, a major wholesaler in Dunstable covers a wide area around the Chilterns: another to the west of London covers the Solent. Regional brewer Wadworths' of Devizes covers much of the West Country, while Hall & Woodhouse in Oxfordshire covers the South Midlands. In all Adnams deals with about 30 suppliers, and makes deliveries to at least 20 of them every week using the Southwold-based delivery fleet, Apart from its own pubs, Adnams also serves 600 free trade outlets around East Anglia, and aims to provide a weekly delivery to all regular customers.
Up to now, dovetailing wholesale and direct deliveries has presented no real problem. "sometimes the wholesale customers take a full load for one drop." says Clifford, "but often they take less than that." This means it is usually possible to combine wholesale deliveries with conventional pub drops, avoiding any major disruption to traditional delivery patterns. An IBM computer system organises orderpicking and load allocation.
A second man travels on virtally all journeys, whether to major warehouses or to retail outlets. "There are still a lot of premises where there's no help with offloading, and a driver alone simply couldn't handle the job. Having two people on every trip gives us maximum flexibility."
To cope with the gradual build-up of business bigger drays are being bought. The earlier examples in the all-Cargo rigid fleet are 10-tonners; the latest additions are 13-tonners. Another sign of the times is that curtain-sided bodies are now speci fled in place of open-sided dray bodies. "They are quicker to open up, and the drivers definitely prefer them," Clifford reports. "Curiously enough, though, there's no special benefit in putting them on any particular job — the open drays can still cover most of our outlets."
SEASONAL PERKS
Adnams original artic was acquired in 1981 to cover seasonal peaks and serve areas of high demand, carrying enough for up to four drops at a time. Two Crane Fruehauf semi-trailers were bought for it to allow pre-loading; now at least one artic is needed daily, and there is plenty of scope for a second, "although initially we'll probably be running the second one about three days a week", says Clifford.
Adnams refurbished and repainted the old ERF in its own workshop, using a local signwriter for the finishing work. The trailers have been refurbished too, and have had Crane Fruehauf curtain
sided bodies mounted on them, but there are no plans to bring in another semi: "At the moment it wouldn't give us any great benefit, and we might have trouble making room for it," Clifford explains. As it is, the company's semi-trailers are only 10-6m, which is an advantage for manoeuvring in the confined Southwold premises.
Apart from delivering its products in packaged form, Adnams is also involved to some extent in bulk transport. When its bottling line was closed some years ago the job was transferred to Ridleys at Chelmsford, but no extra transport burden was involved because Ridleys' collects the beer in bulk tankers and returns the bottled product. Beer is also collected in bulk by other suppliers notably Everards of Leicester, which markets it under special local brand names.
The quaintest aspect of the company's transport operation is the horse-drawn dray that plies between the brewery and the warehouse in Southwold, but it is not only for show — the daily round can mean up to 15 trips. "It's cheap and it's quiet," Clifford says. It also enables the two shire horses to earn their keep in between show appearances. The dray itself is an unadorned flat-platform trailer built by Crane Fruehauf.
Despite the increasing use of outside companies to deliver Adnams' beer to wider markets, Clifford has no thoughts of reducing its core fleet. "It's company policy to do the job ourselves," he says. "Besides, it gives us tight control of our immediate transport requirements. Its hard to imagine achieving that any other way." 0 by Peter Rowlands