Tag: UK Logistics

An apprenticeship is a great way to combine practical on-the-job training with study. It is a real job where you get paid with the opportunity to learn a new skill and gain business knowledge working alongside an experienced team.

They are open to anyone 16 years old or over if you live in England and are not in full-time education. So whether just starting your career, looking to change careers, or enhancing your skills, they are highly flexible. 

Anglia Freight has supported many people through apprenticeships, historically for those at the early part of their careers as they have joined the company. They have since become more varied, with placements for those of all ages, experiences and in many different roles. In addition to apprentices joining the company, we also encourage existing employees to develop their skills and knowledge through apprenticeships.

Benefits of an apprenticeship

We believe apprenticeships are a great way to help individuals realise their full potential, helping them grow professionally as we support them every step of the way. In particular, the benefits of doing an apprenticeship include:

  • Earn a wage while you learn *
  • 80% of the paid time will be in work: 20% of the paid time will be in training, usually at a college or with a training provider
  • Gain a nationally recognised qualification
  • Gain real work experience within our teams
  • Opportunity to develop your skills 
  • Great for your CV – improving your employability 
  • Great for meeting new people and industry professionals
  • 28 days of paid holiday leave
  • Health Cash Back plan
  • Company performance bonus 

* Anglia Freight offers a very competitive salary above the apprentice rate (if you are aged 16-18) or above the national minimum wage (aged 19 or over).

What apprenticeships does Anglia Freight have available?

We offer apprenticeships to around eight people a year and have supported individuals straight from school as well as senior managers. They vary in length, ideally around one to three years, from business operations, customer services and warehousing positions to HGV drivers and senior-level strategic management.

We currently have two HGV apprenticeships available where we’ll support you throughout your training, paying for all HGV tests.  

Where can I find further information?

If you are looking for something different, we’re always open to a conversation. Even if there are no opportunities when we speak with you, there may be potential roles in the future, so give us a call on 01379 872872.

Alternatively, there are many external resources that are a helpful place to start:

 

It is that time of year again when we reflect on the previous year, take stock of the current situation and project forward at what the New Year may bring. You may already have an idea where I’m going with this from the title?!

Usually the budgeting and forecasting at Anglia Freight is a fairly simple process of using historic results and nailing our flag to the mast for what we want to achieve for the next year. The slight snag this year is that we do not have the foggiest idea what the lay of the land will be for 2019.

Business leaders are having to make up to three or four strategy plans to cover the most likely eventualities of what life looks like once the BREXIT outcome is decided. It is not unusual for Companies to have multiple plans, but the problem we all face here is not just the whole uncertainty of criteria, but the sheer scale and magnitude of differences between the outcomes of one path to another.

One of Anglia Freight’s values and intentions is to always offer Peace of Mind to our Customers. I’ve mentioned before, it is a big deal for Customers to put their trust in us to deliver and look after their products which are in effect their livelihoods. We aim to be a key step in the sequence of steps to get product to market, where our Customers have complete faith and confidence in us to do our part effectively. Thus freeing up more time to focus on growing their own Business or in the next few months, potentially weathering whatever storm may arise.

So you could say that part of our Business model and plan for 2019 is ensure that we are the Calm amongst the Storm for our Customers, Suppliers and Staff. There will be a lot of valued work behind the scenes to do this and we will continue to thrive. Living by our values; Exceptional Service, Innovation, Peace of Mind and Loyalty, which will all help ensure we are a stand out, robust certainty in a sea of uncertainty that we find ourselves in today.

From all of us at Anglia Freight, regardless of the fun times ahead, we wish you a successful 2019 and look forward to continue working with you and growing from strength to strength.

Douglas Shawcross – Managing Director

 

In January’s blog, we touched on some of the challenges that were facing both Anglia Freight and the logistics industry. One of these is around recruiting staff with the right skills and helping them progress their careers for the future. To address this, we’ve been doing our bit to help educate young people about the world of logistics. How did we do this? That’s easy! We sent Commercial Director, Ben Moulton and Business Support Manager, Gina Helm back to school!

Ben & Gina at Careers Week
Gina’s children attend Debenham High School and we found out they were running a Careers Week in February. Kevin Voller from the careers team invited us to talk to pupils about the benefits of having a career in logistics, highlighting the types of jobs that are available along with some surprising facts and figures. With prospects for all, we were keen to show there is more to haulage than just trucks and drivers!

UK haulage industry – Did you know?
• The UK haulage industry is worth £74 billion
• It is the UK’s fifth largest industry
• It has 498,000 trucks
• It employs 1.8 million people
• 600,000 of those are HGV drivers
• Trucks carry 85% of the UK’s goods
• By 2022, the UK’s logistics industry needs to recruit another 1.2 million people

New logistics blood needed
It is not surprising that 92% of the people who work in UK haulage are men, which means only 8% are women. Moreover, only 1% of the UK’s 600,000 HGV drivers are under 25! We need to act now to address the skills shortage as well as the lack of females and young people in the industry. This is important as the lack of skilled workers directly impacts our business now and in the future.

I’m leaving school this year…how do I start a career in logistics?
There are many ways you can start your logistics career such as:

• Government Trailblazer Apprentice Scheme. This is a new scheme with guaranteed training, assessments and certified qualifications as well as a proper job.
• Internships
• Graduate Schemes
• University Degree Courses
• School Advisors
• Speak to Ben or Gina at Anglia Freight on 01379 872872

What great feedback!
‘Both Gina and I were very impressed with all those who attended both in their behaviour and the way they engaged with the discussion. Their questions were considered and articulated in a way that many adults would be pleased with. All of the pupils were a credit to themselves, their teachers and the school and we would be delighted to attend the same week next year and any other career-based activities the High School run.’ – Ben Moulton

‘Many thanks for coming to school and helping to make careers week a success. I very much enjoyed your presentation and it helps me to gain a better understanding of this sector. One of the boys who attended tells me that he wants to work in haulage and I’m sure that it opened the eyes of other students to the potential opportunities that are available. I’m sure that I will get back in touch with you as we run an enterprise day in the summer term that involves working out costs etc for transporting goods to France. We have business mentors come in for the day, so somebody with knowledge of logistics would be very useful. I will pass the message onto the students.’ – Kevin Voller

What’s next?
Anglia Freight is looking to get involved with future activities not only with Debenham High School but with other schools too. If you’d like Gina and Ben to come along and feature in your school’s career activity, please call Anglia Freight on 01379 872872.

In May this year, Anglia Freight was found to meet the latest upgrade to the ISO 2015. This was assessed and certified by the Independent European Certification Limited in respect of our Quality Management System and found to be meeting the requirements of ISO 9001:2015.

ISO 9001:2015 is principally a worldwide recognised set of rules which companies implement with the aim of enhancing product or service quality within their organisation.

ISO 9001:2015 forms part of a family of ISO 9000 standards, documents and guidelines; there are currently over 20 documents in total, with new or revised documents being added all the time to inform and increase companies’ understanding of requirements and continually improve their business models.

ISO 9001:2015 is predominately based on 3 key documents:

  1. ISO 9000:2015 Quality Management Systems – Fundamentals and Vocabulary
  2. ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Systems – Requirements
  3. ISO 19011:2011 Guidelines for Auditing Management Systems

 

 

On Saturday 10th June 2017, twelve members of the Anglia Freight team attended the 25th Anniversary Palletline Awards Dinner.

This prestigious event was held inside our Central hub, located next to the NEC complex in Birmingham. The hub was operational at 5am on the Saturday morning and the event organisers managed to stage a spectacular event just the same evening.

I am very pleased to announce that in addition to the company reporting a strong ongoing growth trend, Anglia Freight won a major business award that night. ‘The Palletline Service Award 2016-17’. The panel of judges were looking for evidence of high levels of service, maintaining service excellence through peak times and a clear demonstration that service commitment is driven from the top down within the business. The awards are hotly contested and coveted by all the 88 Palletline depots nationwide.

Depot Principal and Network Director, Pete Holden commented, “We are all so proud of the recognition that this award shows. Every single member of our staff team played their part in winning this. It’s a real measure of achievement and success within the Network and we are truly grateful. I am very positive about the future of the business with our freight in very safe hands within the Palletline Network”.

Managing Director, Doug Shawcross commented, “Service is such an important offering to our customers and our key differentiator to the competition. It’s the Holy Grail for logistics businesses!”

Here’s to the next 25 years of changing the industry!

 

What a year so far! We are thrilled to announce that Anglia Freight has had its best year yet, achieving an unprecedented turnover of £10m.

Geoff Moulton founded Anglia Freight in 1993. It was his vision to establish the business and hit the ‘magic’ £10m turnover figure. Geoff worked hard and the company grew rapidly. In 2010, the second generation of family Directors was appointed. Geoff’s established vision united with the new team’s aspirations. Led by Managing Director, Doug Shawcross, ambitious targets were set and realised time after time. In 2016, our new Transit Hub launched. Business increased, volumes soared, we broke our records for the number of pallets distributed in one night and we hit our ‘magic’ turnover figure.

Geoff comments, ‘Three to four years ago, we were achieving a turnover of £5m. At that time, we had ambitious plans to double that within five years. I can’t tell you how proud I was that we achieved this goal well ahead of time, with 18 months to spare. What a tremendous achievement from our second generation Director team. Of course, I’m thrilled to have hit this goal ahead of time, but what pleases me most is the way that the five team members have gelled. They have brought their own skills and expertise to the table and have formed a successful team. I never thought I’d be able to retire and hand over the reigns to them so easily. This only reflects the total confidence I have in them and repays the faith I had in the new team structure when it was established a few years ago. I can only look forward to seeing how the team will take Anglia Freight to the next level.’

Doug adds, ‘I distinctly remember when we set the £10m turnover target. It seemed like a massive gap from where we were.  We were almost doubling our business. As a lover of sport, I would sometimes hear people talking after a good result, commenting on how ‘everything is coming together’. I have to say that hitting the £10m turnover mark felt very much like this. We set the intention, everyone got on board and we achieved it as a team.’ He adds, ‘The best bit is; the bigger we grow, the better our customer service gets. We’ve re-invested into IT and upskilled our teams, allowing us to cope with new business and increased volume effortlessly while still maintaining unprecedented service levels and have refreshed our brand and launched a new website to promote our company values and reinforce how we like to do business.’

Pallet networks are key to our growth

Our focus is network freight. We are a smart business and are in sync with our vision and values around where the business is going and how we’re going to get there. Palletline is the second biggest pallet distribution network in the country and Anglia Freight is a high quality palletised distribution company. We are proud to be the second largest inputter into this network at 3,500 pallets per week.

As a shareholder member of Palletline, we understand how pallet networks operate and consequently this area of our business is growing. We are a company with excellent pallet distribution, unrivalled customer communication and one which doesn’t distract itself from its core philosophy. We now have more staff and more trucks on the road than ever before and are continually improving our facilities and processes to deliver our customers the very best experience.

Refreshed brand. New website.

Off the back of our record year, we are continuing to raise our game, elevating the Anglia Freight brand in the hearts and minds of our customers and within the logistics industry. In line with our growth strategy, we have updated our branding and launched our new website. We want our customers to be able to do business with us quickly and simply, understanding what services we have to offer as well as the benefits of using Anglia Freight. Whether booking a consignment for delivery or getting a quote, we want our website to become a simple one stop shop for all.

Our refreshed brand and new website symbolise what Anglia Freight is all about. For our customers, we do our utmost to get things done quickly, simply and effectively and our new, clean cut identity reflects this. We are more in tune with who we are as a company and believe that less is definitely more. It is this straightforward professionalism that we value and is the way we do business.

Our customer service team prides itself on its communication, responding quickly and efficiently to enquiries. All new customers experience our Onboarding Process. They become familiar with our freight booking systems, can easily find FAQs  and can get a quote within 1 hour. Our systems are slicker and existing customers are putting through higher volumes as their businesses grow.

Further development is already in the pipeline. These are indeed exciting times for Anglia Freight.

Following the EU Referendum on June 23rd and the decision for the UK to leave the European Union, there’s been much speculation about what Brexit means for you and for the UK logistics and supply chain industry.

We’re conscious of the uncertainty this causes, but for now, the UK is still a member of the EU and will continue to be whilst negotiations around trade deals and movement of goods take place over the next two years.

In the meantime, we’ve got our ear to the ground and are well informed within the industry.  We have regular communications from both the British International Freight Association and Road Haulage Association as well as keeping up to date with local business news via the Suffolk Chamber of Commerce.

So for the time being, it is very much business as usual.  The way we ship to and from the EU remains the same and we’re here to help you trade with your customers in Europe.

Anglia Freight ships to all 28 EU countries

As a shareholder member of the award winning Palletline network, we ship to any of the 28 countries in the European Union.  Shipping to EU countries occurs in exactly the same way as shipping to any part of the UK with no special documents required.   Whether you’re shipping to Bulgaria, Spain or Germany, follow our ‘Getting it Right’ guide below.

Shipping to Europe – Getting it Right

  • Tell us your collection date
  • Tell us your collection address with postcode, name of contact and their phone number
  • Tell us your delivery date
  • Tell us your delivery address with postcode, name of contact and their phone number
  • Know your country code. Each country has its own unique country code e.g. France is FREU
  • Tell us of any specific delivery instructions
  • Tell us what service level you need e.g. 2 days, 5 days
  • Tell us if you are transporting hazardous cargo
  • Tell us how many pallets you are transporting and how much they weigh
  • Correctly label all pallets with a Palletline/Anglia Freight label

Need more information? Call 01379 872872

Email sales@angliafreight.co.uk

Click our Distribution page for further details.