03 May Customer Case Study— Castell Howell
Castell Howell Food celebrated 35 years of business in 2023 having grown from their small rural beginnings in 1988 to becoming the leading independent foodservice wholesaler in Wales, servicing the length and breadth of Wales, the border counties and the South West of England. With the founding family still fully involved, this business has passed through the generations as seen in their leadership team, staff, customers, suppliers, partners and wider community.
As a family-run business, Gray & Adams understands Castell Howell’s values of continual growth and support while meeting and exceeding all expectations with quality products, competitive prices and exceptional customer service. As such, Gray & Adams is keen to deliver excellent service as well as quality trailers to keep Castell Howell driving forward.
Gray & Adams has a long-running relationship with Castell Howell producing their vehicle fleet, and ensuring quality and resilience for each build. Castell Howell is committed to investing in technology and innovation and working with partners like Gray & Adams who are renowned in the industry.
Customer Requirement
Castell Howell came to Gray & Adams in the Spring of 2005 with high vehicle specifications, requiring the product to be resilient. At that time, Martin Jones, Director of Transport at Castell Howell Foods, was aware of Gray & Adams as a well-respected name in the industry. He visited Gray & Adams’ Dunfermline site in 2005 and liked the methodology and the processes employed by Gray & Adams, their purposeful innovation is what made Martin choose to work with Gray & Adams.
At present Castell Howell has five Gray & Adams trailers with two to be delivered in the coming weeks. Their fleet mostly consists of around 180 rigid bodies, at least 60 of which are Gray & Adams with 10 more being delivered imminently and 26 on order for 2025.
Travelling around mid-Wales, the fleet often comes into contact with many low-hanging branches that test the strength of any trailer. Gray & Adams solved this threat by incorporating unique stainless-steel protection for the front corners of our double-deck trailers, allowing protection from the overhanging branches.
Result
Castell Howell continues to choose Gray & Adams products because of the structurally solid body that allows their fleet to have a long life and withstand the tough conditions they come across. The rigids sometimes do 40 drops a day and travel along lots of small B-roads, so the innovative ideas Gray & Adams provide allow them to do so comfortably.
Castell Howell has been in partnership with Gray & Adams for almost 20 years. This partnership has been maintained by the strong relationship between Martin and the team at Gray & Adams, where any additional support required is always met. Martin describes Gray & Adams as “consistently reliable, building a good product to a high standard and on time. When you buy a Gray & Adams product you invest in support.”
Customer Impact
Castell Howell has full confidence in continuing to use Gray & Adams products going forward. Martin notes that “while their price point is slightly higher than other industry competitors, the quality and service Gray & Adams provide is always superior.”
Gray & Adams is providing Castell Howell with 10 units this year and a further 26 units next year, being Castell Howell’s largest order with one body manufacturer in a single year. Gray & Adams is also manufacturing Castell Howell’s first Electric Vehicle which is to be delivered by the end of the year. With Castell Howell having a fleet of 200 vehicles they have a responsibility to look at clean solutions and applications in which they can accommodate it.
Martin notes, “We are looking forward to receiving our first electric vehicle at the end of the year. It is an investment for us and we wanted to make sure it was built by the right partner to get every fine detail just right, which is why we turned to Gray & Adams for this project.”
Our Customer Says
“We have a really good relationship with Gray & Adams. They are reliable which is hugely important to me as an operator, in terms of their delivery—if they say it will be delivered in March, they will deliver it in March—they are reliable like that. The Gray & Adams product speaks for itself in quality, as an operator, durability is highly important to me. The team at Gray & Adams are a nice bunch of people—it is a family-run business, as our we (Castell Howell) and we share those same business ethics.”
Martin Jones, Transport Director, Castell Howell