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Worcestershire-based M Pinches and Sons hauls a lot of food
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and stationery. Years ago the firm chose to involve itself in hire purchase deals but, as Jez Abbott reports, things are very different today—trucks are bought outright, or not at all.
Size does matter, says Martin Pinches— he reckons his fleet of 20 ivecos is just about spot on for M Pinches & Sons, which he runs with his three brothers from a base in Blackpole, Worcester As transport director for this groupage haulier, Pinches recently topped up the fleet with two of the first iveco Stralls tractors In the UK. lie will be keeping a steely eye on the tri-axle flagship rigs as they shift up to 26 pallet-loads at a time packed with feed and plastic boxes or raw materials and stationery. They will have to measure up—Pinches tractors generally cover 400,000 miles in Just over two years.
Only a compact set-up can make the company an effective competitor with larger firms, Pinches believes: "A fleet of this size allows us to offer rapid response to customers demands. We work for multinationals and when they pick up the phone they know they will get a decision-maker at our end without being passed around or fobbed off.
"This is critical became haulage is going the way of corner shops. Many have been squeezed out by the big boys, but the smaller jobs haven't dwindled. Many larger firms have little loads that need shifting quickly, and our size is a strong selling point."
When a customer phones at 17:00hrs, Pinches says he can make a small delivery the next day or provide the caller with one of those Stralises. The new 430hp and 400hp rigs are squaring up well against the rest of his iveco fleet, which includes 17
tonne Super Cargo rigkls and 10 other tractive units. The extra space in the cabs is a welcome change for our guys, especially as five of our trucks are driven overnight," he says. "But the biggest advantage is the ability to drive the tractors semi or fully automatically."
This makes short work of those tricky drop-off points in town centres. Drivers simply lock the engines into gear before easing to a standstill using brake and accelerator. "This is less stressful for the drivers who don't have to worry about changing gears," says Pinches.
Keeping the fleet up to date and efficient is a must for any haulage outfit but the finance is a sore point for the firm, which has 25 drivers, seven admin staff and the usual mountain of overheads. Given the high costs of running trucks, Pinches believes that hauliers should receive government subsidies or rebates: "We invest heavily but
6■7,...... ---1_, .
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don't get a penny. Over the years we have had to fix side guards to trailers, we have cut emissions and beefed up truck suspension to make it more road friendly. Cash incentives would buy more kit and manufacturers would therefore build additional trucks and parts."
Recent years
Hauliers who fall to keep up with new technology have been going under in recent years, he has noticed. Pinches reckons the number of hauliers going out of business in his area has Increased -tenfold" but In the tough economic climate he cannot afford to feel too much sympathy: "They were inefficient, could not give a good service level or did work for next to nothing."
The Pinches family has never done that, he says. When his parents launched M Pinches Transport in 1969 they did so with hire-purchase loans, but since then the firm has never relied on credit. "We don't owe a bean," says Pinches, who is the oldest of four children in the business. If we need a vehicle we write a cheque then and there."
Parents Mervyn and Janet, now in their early sixties, became MD and company secretary respectively when they set up as sole traders back In 1969. Their sons formed M Pinches & Sons as a limited company in 1986 and the two operations share the Blackpole depot.
As shareholders they hope to reap more financial benefit if they choose to sell up one day. "But will anybody want to buy a haulage firm in 20 years?" Pinches wonders. They don't seem to top people's shopping lists."
Brothers Peter Keven and Christopher are all directors. Martin Pinches is proud of the family focus, especially now that a third generation has clocked on, in the person of his 22-year-old son Scott. He is a driver; brother-in-law Roger Godwin is on the team as a mechanic, helping to keep the fleet rolling throughout England, Scotland and Wales.
This nationwide coverage is helped by M Pinches & Sons' membership of the Palletline distribution network with some 40 depots. '1 don't think firms like ours could survive without this kind of service," says Pinches—but for now, at least, the company is not using Palletline's depots in Belgium, the Netherlands or Spain. "We have a European Operator's Licence but have not been abroad for several years," he adds. "The margins were never that good and exporting has dropped In the past four years. This country has become more of a service provider than a manufacturing country with really big international haulage demands."
The good news is that foreign operators have yet to threaten M Pinches & Sons' core groupage business: "They want to stick to full loads, which are easier to handle than journeys Involving dropping off pallets here, there and everywhere." But what about competition from the railways? "Everyone wants big trucks off the road but railways will never compete with what we do," says Pinches. "MPs can't even sort out a decent passenger service, and manufacturers want smaller deliveries In greater frequency. You can never do that with trains."
And the same politicians have botched the road system, he adds, making congestion his number-one problem: "This is especially worrying for a groupage operation where you are making multiple deliveries... but solving the problem is a million-dollar question,"
Apart from clogged reads Martin Is generally pleased with the way the company is developing: -We could be more ambitious and buy three or four extra trucks, but we worry about the driver shortage and don't want to over-stretch ourselves. We have a
robust niche and are happy to stay this size to keep up the level of service."