The Woodhorn Group

Client background

Established in 1882, The Woodhorn Group is a family-run range of businesses, committed to achieving excellence. The Woodhorn Business Centre is ideally located for ‘out-of-town’ work life with a range of offices, workshops and storage spaces available to let.

A 1500 acre organic arable and dairy farm is at the heart of the business and the Group operates three licensed recycling sites enabling significant diversion of green waste from landfill in the South East. Their range of Earth Cycle composts and soil conditioners provide eco-friendly, peat-free products for use by trade and domestic customers. 

The Woodhorn Group is a varied and integrated business and their key objective is to strive to be successful from a business perspective, whilst integrating their own more prosaic environmental and social aims.

All aspects of the business are managed with the objective of environmental and economic sustainability for both the business and the local community. As a company Woodhorn supports many local events and initiatives throughout the year and aims to be a positive and active member of the community.

The requirement

The business started to grow rapidly around eight years ago and the Group realised that they needed to find a reliable haulage company to transport and deliver their materials to partners and customers.

Mike Jupp, Woodhorn’s Commercial Director, knew of TJ and had worked with TJ’s Commercial Director, Steve Grant in a previous role. It was this, teamed with TJ’s reputation for being a reliable, responsible haulier that piqued Mike’s interest when Steve got in touch. He also liked TJ’s ethos; that they were concerned with environmental issues and their dedication to diverting waste from landfill and promoting recycling in all its forms.

The requirement was for a daily haulage service, to deliver large quantities of their topsoil product to customers in West Sussex, the surrounding counties and further afield.

The solution

Mike said:

“Steve approached me at that time when I was seeking a haulage company and researching my options so it was incredibly good timing. The fact that I knew and trusted Steve and liked what TJ stood for as a company made it an easy decision.”

Woodhorn felt that TJ was a very good representative of themselves as a business and that they share many of the same values. TJ’s fleet of modern, well-maintained, clean vehicles and professional, well-qualified drivers was another reason that Woodhorn decided to employ TJ. They also liked that health and safety features highly in TJ’s priorities and that they are a FORS Silver accredited haulier.

TJ was awarded the haulage contract and has been providing this service for eight years to date. They are Woodhorn’s primary haulier, carrying out over 90% of their haulage activities. This equates to hauling and delivering around 1,000 tonnes of topsoil for them every week.

In addition to this, Woodhorn also purchase around 12,000 tonnes of sand from TJ each year, which is sourced from their sand quarry in Hythe. Woodhorn uses this sand during the topsoil-making process.

The relationship between Woodhorn and TJ is a reciprocal one as TJ also purchases topsoil from Woodhorn in order to fulfil orders that they receive through their own aggregate service. TJ purchases around 10,000 tonnes of topsoil per year, which is utilised by both commercial and domestic customers.

The outcome

Mike said:

“We are extremely pleased with the service TJ provides and we’ve never had a negative experience when dealing with them. Any slight issue is always sorted immediately so it never becomes a problem. We’re also very impressed with their reliability; they prioritise their service to us to ensure we always get what we need, when we need it. We never have any downtime waiting for TJ vehicles to arrive, they are always on time and ready to go.

“TJ has really helped us to grow over the past eight years as they have made it possible for us to deliver our products further afield. We’re looking forward to continuing our working partnership with them as well as possibly exploring new ventures with them in the coming months and years too.”

Read our other case studies to find out more about the partnerships we’ve formed and discover our haulage and aggregate services today!