Wincanton plc is a British provider of

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

with its origins in milk haulage. The company provides transport and logistics services including specialist automated high bay, high capacity warehouses, and

supply chain management In commerce, supply chain management (SCM) is the management of the flow of goods and services including all processes that transform raw materials into final products between businesses and locations. This can include the movement and stor ...

for businesses. It also provides

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

transportation and storage,

warehousing A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities, tow ...

solutions and related services, such as health and safety, IT services and people transition to numerous industries. Wincanton's specialist markets include

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

, consumer goods,

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...

dairy A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or processing (or both) of animal milk – mostly from cows or buffaloes, but also from goats, sheep, horses, or camels – for human consumption. A dairy is typically located on ...

, defence, industrial,

fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but ...

s and energy. It is listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

, and is a former constituent of the

FTSE 250 Index The FTSE 250 Index ( "Footsie") is a capitalisation-weighted index consisting of the 101st to the 350th largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Promotions and demotions to and from the index occur quarterly in March, June, Septemb ...

History

Wincanton was founded in 1925, as Wincanton Transport & Engineering Ltd, a subsidiary of the

West Surrey Central Dairy Company West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

, a company which has since been known as

Cow & Gate Cow & Gate was a United Kingdom based dairy products company, which expanded into milk bottling, distribution, and baby food production. It merged in 1959 with United Dairies to form Unigate plc, which today is known as Uniq plc. The Cow & Gate br ...

, Unigate and then

Uniq uniq is a utility command (computing), command on Unix, Plan 9 from Bell Labs, Plan 9, Inferno (operating system), Inferno, and Unix-like operating systems which, when fed a text file or Standard streams#Standard input (stdin), standard input, o ...

. In the 1970s, Wincanton diversified into new market sectors including

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

and developed temperature controlled operations for the

transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, an ...

ation of

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is inge ...

stuffs and refrigerated goods. In the 1990s, Wincanton merged with Unigate Chilled Distribution, and entered the

retail market Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

, through the acquisition of Glass Glover in February 1993. In March 2001, Wincanton plc

demerged A demerger is a form of corporate restructuring in which the entity's business operations are segregated into one or more components. It is the converse of a merger or acquisition. A demerger can take place through a spin-off by distributed or ...

from Uniq, and was listed on the

. In November 2008, Wincanton acquired the CEL Group. In November 2015, Wincanton sold its

records management Records management, also known as records and information management, is an organizational function devoted to the information management, management of information in an organization throughout its records life-cycle, life cycle, from the time of ...

business (WRM) to Restore for approximately £55.7m to reduce its average net indebtedness, and allow room for growth. In February 2016, Wincanton partnered with

Magnet Kitchens Magnet is a British kitchen retailer operating in over two hundred locations across the United Kingdom supplying products under the Magnet and Magnet Trade brands. The company has over 2,000 employees and its headquarters are in Darlington, Coun ...

to produce forty four new double decker articulated trailers which was an investment of £2 million. In March 2016, Wincanton launched EnergyLink, a network based in the United Kingdom to support greater flexibility in delivery services for the

energy sector The energy industry is the totality of all of the industries involved in the production and sale of energy, including fuel extraction, manufacturing, refining and distribution. Modern society consumes large amounts of fuel, and the energy indust ...

. In April 2016, Wincanton gained further growth of its operations at the

Port of Southampton The Port of Southampton is a passenger and cargo port in the central part of the south coast of England. The modern era in the history of the Port of Southampton began when the first dock was inaugurated in 1843. The port has been owned and op ...

after moving to a new base and investing in new equipment, supported by extra

rail Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Rail (rail transport) or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' ( ...

capacity. In June 2016, Wincanton renewed its distribution deal with J Sainsburys PLC for an additional five years. The business has been a customer of Wincanton for the past twenty one years. In July 2016, Wincanton renewed a contract with

The Co-operative Group Co-operative Group Limited, trading as Co-op, is a British consumer cooperative, consumer co-operative with a group of retail businesses including food retail, wholesale, e-pharmacy, insurance and legal services, and funeral care. The Co-op ...

for a further five years, which brings the contract to twenty five years. As part of the agreement, around seven hundred staff of Wincanton and a fleet of more than five hundred vehicles will support the Co Op, by making around 130k journeys each year to as many as 1,000 stores of the Co-op across the United Kingdom. In October 2019, Wincanton plc expressed an interest in merging with

Eddie Stobart Edward Pears Stobart (born 18 April 1929), better known as Eddie Stobart, is a British businessman who started an agriculture business in the late 1940s. This became ''Eddie Stobart Ltd'' in 1970 and expanded to a haulage company during the 19 ...

. Wincanton, later withdrew their offer, saying that it had “yet to receive full disclosure of the information requested to enable it to complete its due diligence exercise”.

Headquarters

The company's origins are in

Wincanton Wincanton ( or ) is a small town and electoral ward in South Somerset, southwest England. The town lies off the A303 road, a main route between London and South West England, and has some light industry. The town and electoral ward has a populati ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, although the head office is now based in Methuen Park,

Chippenham Chippenham is a market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

Operations

Wincanton currently directly employs in the region of 20,000 people across the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and Ireland through a network of over two hundred sites. As of 2016, the Wincanton fleet comprises over 3,400

vehicle A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), wa ...

s including conventional

truck A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construction ...

s and trailers, as well as a range of specialist equipment including skeletal trailers, tankers and construction vehicles.

Services

Wincanton offers road transport and

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations * Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...

, container

, specialist transport to

construction sites Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and come ...

, tankers for all liquid and powder products, including petroleum and lubricants,

home delivery Delivery is the process of transporting goods from a source location to a predefined destination. Cargo (physical goods) is primarily delivered via roads and Rail transport, railroads on land, shipping lanes on the sea, and airline networks ...

and

fleet management Fleet management is the management of: * Commercial motor vehicles such as cars, vans, trucks, specialist vehicles (such as mobile construction machinery), forklifts, and trailers * Private vehicles used for work purposes (the 'grey fleet') * Avi ...

and vehicle maintenance through its subsidiary business, Pullman Fleet Services. Wincanton offers dedicated and shared user warehousing, bonded warehousing and other services. These include co-packing,

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

, fulfilment, off-

quay A wharf, quay (, also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths (mooring location ...

solutions, returns management,

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...

and

packaging Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a co ...

. Wincanton also offers integrated

IT services Information technology service management (ITSM) is the activities that are performed by an organization to design, build, deliver, operate and control information technology (IT) services offered to customers. Differing from more technology-or ...

, change management and people transition (

TUPE The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 known colloquially as TUPE and pronounced , are the United Kingdom's implementation of the European Union Transfer of Undertakings Directive. It is an important part of UK la ...

) services.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wincanton Plc Companies based in Wiltshire Logistics companies of the United Kingdom Transport operators of the United Kingdom Transport companies established in 1925 1925 establishments in England Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange