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Hastings marks profit rise with Om centre
Page 13
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YORKSHIRE-BASED pallet specialist Hastings Freight has invested nearly £2m in a new distribution centre after a year which saw profits increase 20%.
The company, whose new distribution centre is at Barlbourgh, near Sheffield, carries out 95% of its work through the Palletways network.
Managing director Alan Hastings says he believes pallets are much more profitable for hauliers and he views the money made by many traditional operators with dismay. "I look at the profits of many of the firms that I have always looked up to and admired, and I wonder why they bother," he says
Where most hauliers struggle to make profits of 5% on total turnover, Hastings says his firm now makes "well into double figures" on its £3m turnover, He is cautious about saying exactly what the firm's profit margin is, but it is understood to be more than 20%.
"We make a huge amount of money and our trucks rarely go more than 25km from base and are never empty," he says.
Hastings Freight employs 32 people and operates 15 trucks. When it started working with Palletways six years ago it had just one driver in addition to Hastings and made just £425 in its first month. "Things have gone well since then. It just makes me wonder why traditional hauliers do it. They are just doing things the same way that their dad and his dad before him did them," says Hastings.