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DRINKING TO SUCCESS
Page 163
Page 164
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The Showering name was bound up with the West Countly town of Shepton Mallet at a time when the horse served as the engine of Iliad transport.
Some 250 years ago, the Showering family was brewing cider and beer in its pub. The Kih er reel brewery was built by the presetii gelieration's great, great grandfather ui a site that still forms part of the modern factory, complex.
Showerings started long before ERF, but its rise to prominence began, like EliF, in the 1930s. In the 1120s the four Showering brothers, Arthur, Herbert., Francis and Ralph, took over the business, and by 1932 they had set up as a private company.
From then on things began to move fast. The brothers began to distribute their products in small Bedford trucks but by the mid-50s, ERFs would be covering over three million miles a year for the family.
The explosion in the distribution end of the business tied in with the success of the Showerings' most famous drink, Babycham, In the late 1930s Francis Showering began to develop new
techniques for fermenting fruit juices. The 'fruit' of his labours was his pearjuicebased moneyspinner Babycham in 19,16.
Present-day fleet engineer at Si Lepton, Rodney Neale, takes up the story: "Quite soon the first ERFs were phased in to replace the old Bedfords. They proved reliable and economical and eventually took over" By 1951, when Babycham was launched nationally. ERFs had become Showerings' standard vehicle in a fleet of 58. There are now 60 t nicks and 50 trailers based at Shepton alone, with 450 (Ns in the national fleet.
The organisation now distributes throughout the UK and into Europe from Shepton, Attlehorough in Norfolk and thinking depots at. lluddetsfield and Cardiff.
Showering retains its name, but the company is now part of the Allied hp ins group. The corporate image has not dented Showerings' fortunes. The fleet is growing and the vehicle requirement for 1988 was a hefty 5750,000.
"We kink at specific need.s for our dist tibia ion tasks," says Neale. "We tend to replace like with like but are always looking for the ideal vehicle. Whatever the requirement, it's my job to choose the best beast for the joh:'
Neale runs it-ticks of different makes back-to-back con identical jobs in order to find his best h ii )1 for the job,
Whatever I he choice the vehicles have In he sturdy animals because Neale expects his:l8-tormers to last eight years, or some 800,i H)Okla.
'lb look after them Shepton employs 23 fill rs for maintenance, repairs and some bidyhuilding. Skilled titters, as elsewhere in Britain, are in desperately short supply: "It's taken us nearly a year to get three good titters." says Neale. Backed by the considerable financial clout of Allied Lyons, Showerings buys its vehicles outright.. Lyons gives it an agreed budget for purchases rather than leaving its subsidiary to take out high-interest loans.
"The big artics are used for it:ranking work and to serve wholesalers like Asda, but the same distribution system sometimes has to serve individual pubs so we need a full range of vans and trucks: says Neale.
Shepton and Attk!horough run everything from 3.5-tonne vans to 16-tonne rigids and 38-tome artics. Each driver is allocated his own vehicle; a policy which Neale finds makes the trucks last longer "When a driver is very familiar with the ‘vhicle he gets to know the smoothest, most economical way to drive it and he takes a personal pride in it.," he says.
Neale believes that ERF has made a major contribution to the Showerings success stray and sees no reason why that contribution should not continue: "lithe trucks can beat the competition in terms of strength, weight-to-payload, costs and reliability then we'll buy them"