BASED: Stoke Ferry, FOUNDED: 1973, Stoke Ferry.
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PROPRIETOR: Roy Stockinger, managing director.
FLEET: 12 Foden and Volvo tractive units with 25 trailers. Buys new and used. Most recent purchases are a new Foden 6x2 mid-lift this month and a new Volvo FH12. SPECIALITY CONTRACT: Agricultural supplies. TURNOVER: £1m, up to 8% profit, Customers who do business with Roy Stockinger are left
in no doubt where the
buck stops.
For despite the fact that Stockinger runs a fleet of 12
▪ 38-tonners, working
▪ throughout the UK, he runs 28 September-4 October 1995
the business entirely on his own—his office phone lines even transfer to his house when he goes home.
Even when on holiday he stays in con. tact with his chief mechanic, William Taylor, who oversees the business in his absence.
Gazing out at the rain beating down on his yard from the portable building that is his office, he explains why he is at work on this miserable Saturday morning. It's a chance to for catch up on timesheets, tacho charts and maintenance supervision.
To monitor the company finances and to plan routeing Stockinger has invested in Sage, a computer package that covers all aspects of the job. "It's easy to moan but, at the end of the day, I get great satisfaction in doing the job," he says.
He runs flats and tippers in a mixed fleet of new and used Fodens and Volvos. A new FH1 2 went on the road this summer. A Foden 6x2 joins the fleet this month but the FH12—the second Volvo to join the fleet within a year— signals a change of direction: "When I started out I was buying Foclens for their unladen weight, and you get nothing lighter than a Foden," he says, "but priorities have changed and with fuel the price it is I am looking at miles per gallon; hence the Volvos."
In a typical week he might send grain and fertiliser to Liverpool and backload with timber or stone. Southern runs include fertiliser and steel to Kent but there is no geographical limit within the UK. "We go from the top of Scotland down to Cornwall," says Stockinger. The work is spot hire so each week brings its surprises: "We never know where we're going next but we do like to go straight out and come straight back. We don't like to tramp too much."
Most of the work is related to agriculture, be it feed, grain, fertiliser or sugar beet. Stockinger has enough flats, bulk tippers and curta insiders to ensure flexibility but admits that the business has a high degree of dependence on farmers: "If they have a good year, we have a good year." Replacing drivers is Stockinger's hardest problem. Those with him have seen nine or 10 years' service but the new generation of driver prefers tilts or reefers, he believes. "This work isn't so dean," he says. "Drivers who have been brought up on shrink-wrapped goods find it difficult to do a load of grain."
If Roy Stockinger were a stick of rock he would have "Norfolk" stamped all the way through. He established his business 22 years ago in Stoke Ferry, where he was born, and he still lives and works there. In the early days he was an owner-driver; now his plans include a new three-bay workshop and a new office from where he can run his solitary empire: "We just outgrew the tin hut..."