A SALVATORI 80 SON AS it is based bang in
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the middle of the Garden of England, it's no surprise that A Salvatori's main business is fruit.
Although the company's haulage business was registered in the mid-1960s, its origins go back more than 60 years to when the present chief executive's father, an expatriate Italian from London, bought a smallholding in Kent. "Like so many haulage businesses, ours grew from something else. We always had a truck, and by the late 1960s our haulage work had increased to become a business in its own right," says Daniel Salvatori, who now heads the firm.
Today, A Salvatori operates from a 27-acre site housing the vehicle operating centre, vehicle workshops and controlled-environment storage and warehousing, as well as the main office. The company also has a 200-acre farm nearby growing apples and pears.
The fleet of about 30 tractive units is complemented by almost 80 Eurohner and box-tipper trailers. A Salvatori uses a large number of subcontracted owner-drivers to guarantee flexibility across the seasonal peaks and troughs.
Nearly all the tractors are Scania, supplied on a contract basis by Scantruck in Sittingbourne. "We have a good relationship with them, and they offer good terms," comments Salvatori, who has favoured Scanias for the past 18 years. The trailers are a mixture of Fruehauf and SDC, and the proportion of the latter is growing. Salvatori says SDC offers the best combination of specification and price.
Nearly all the fruit grown, packed and delivered by A Salvatori is for processing, and is carried in either bulk tippers or in special bins. The company's single biggest customer is Capella Fruit Juices of Boxford, Suffolk, but a very large proportion of A Salvatori's business is in continental Europe, particularly France, Germany and Italy.
established its own haulage business just outside Calais, where a third of the fleet's trailers are now based.
A Salvatori has usually looked for return loads from the Continent, and its tipper lorries enabled it to carry diverse goods. But now the com pany wants to move its business more upmarket, concentrating on its core sector of top-quality fruit. Less produce is being carried in tippers and more on pallets or in the special fruit bins. The firm is increasing its fleet of Euroliners while keeping the number of tippers in the fleet static.
It has also introduced temperature controlled trailers to satisfy the needs of a French wine producer for which A Salvatori brings imports to the UK.
Salvatori seems generally content with his company's state of health. But he is worried by the recent worsening of the refugee crisis. When the first flood of East European refugees arrived during the Kosovo conflict, the company was plagued with stowaways. The introduction of fines helped hauliers focus on security and reduced the incidence of illegal entry, says Salvatori. But, although illegal immigration is now harder, the refugees have become more desperate and more ingenious. In a recent incident stowaways arrived in England in one of A Salvatori's vehicles which had been through X-rays and other detectors at Calais and entered the tunnel "clean". "Somehow, the immigrants had crawled from one vehicle into ours while the train was in the tunnel," says Salvatori. Like several other operators, A Salvatori has refused to pay its fines on the grounds that they are unfair and insupportable. But what worries Daniel Salvatori even more than the fines is the demor FLEET About 30 tractive units, nearly all Scanias on contract hire, plus 80 owned trailers, (nanny Euroliners, but including some box tippers. Most recent purchase: Scania R124 420 on contract hire, delivered December 2000.
SPECIALITY Fruit for processing.
TURNOVER About £5m (haulage division only).
alising effect of refugee crisis on his drivers. "We've had drivers leave because of threats from gangs of stowaways, and one of our drivers was physically attacked. But it's not just the threats: our drivers have dist covered whole families stowing away including women and children who
are desperate, terrified and crying. "It can be very upsetting. The popular image of a truck driver is
that he's big, ugly and thick-skinned Most drivers aren't like that."