If you ask most people in the UK population to name a famous Truck haulage company the main answer that you will get will most notably be Eddie Stobart. But what most people don’t know is that since the start of Eddie Stobart, it’s now branched out from Truck haulage and is now known as the Stobart Group.
When the business was started by Eddie Stobart, or as he was fondly known ‘Steady’ Eddie Stobart in the late 1940’s it was as an agricultural business in Cumbria. When his son Edward Stobart junior was born in 1954 he grew up with a keen interest in lorries, so it was inevitable once he left school that he would start working for his father’s contracting business.
By 1970 the company had expanded into three areas which consisted of Fertilizer, Haulage and also a farm shop that was located in Wigton. Six years later and Edward Stobart junior and a fleet of eight lorries moved to Carlisle so that they could be closer to the M6 motorway. Edward put a lot of hard work in to the fleet of eight lorries such as never declining an order no matter how big or small and even down to the smaller details such as keeping them immaculately clean, but all of his hard work paid off and he started to get large orders from bigger businesses.
A key success factor to the business was that a strong reputation was built as well as the corporate image, for example if a driver was caught not wearing their tie whilst on duty then they would face disciplinary action. Similarly to this the company also had a policy whereby all drivers must honk their horns and wave in a traditional truck-driver style when they were signalled by a passer by, or as they’re fondly known an ‘Eddie spotter’.
From here the company grew even more and by 2000 it had widely expanded the ‘Eddie Stobart Group Ltd’ in to three divisions: Eddie Stobart Ltd., Eddie Stobart International and Eddie Stobart Promotions.
The company then looked in to expanding in to the air freight business and in April 2006 Haughey Airports Ltd, a company that operated Carlisle Airport was obtained by Eddie Stobart’s parent company WA Developments. Haughey Airports Ltd was then renamed Stobart Air Ltd.
Eddie Stobart then branched out to Rail Freight and in September 2006 they increased their rail operations and launched a new rail freight service for Tesco, under the Stobart Rail banner.
Since then the company has expanded in to many more sectors around the UK and have even released their own compilation album in May 2013 of the best Trucking Songs. With so much going on for the company it really does go to show that with some hard work and determination a family business really can expand vastly to become a well known brand.