Miniclipper Logistics celebrates 50th anniversary with £5.5m investment in fleet and site expansion

• Launched in 1971 Miniclipper announces major expansion plans as third generation of the Masters family joins the company 
• 2020/21 looks set to be the company’s most successful trading period in 50 years
• New 4-acre site in Dunstable set to house the company’s expanding transport operation
• New Hi-Bay and palletised storage expansion provide increased future capacity
• Miniclipper runs a mixed fleet of 40 trucks and 30 trailers to service 250 live customers
• 140 employees are based across five sites within a stone’s throw of the M1

Miniclipper Logistics celebrated its half century of trading on 23 March 2021 by announcing a £5.5million investment in its transport and warehousing divisions as it heads for a record year of trading in 2020/21.

The company, founded by Mick Masters in 1971 in Leighton Buzzard remains a family business with his son Peter and daughter-in-law Jayne currently at the helm as managing director and sales director, and his two grandchildren part of the 140-strong workforce. 

Mick responded to an advert in the Leighton Buzzard Observer looking for someone to develop their own parcel delivery service in 1971 and so the company was born. 

Today it provides a range of transport, storage and warehousing solutions for the medical construction, print, retail and food sectors and is a shareholder member of the Palletline network.

Miniclipper enters its sixth decade having recently invested £2.7m in a new 4-acre site in Dunstable where it will relocate its entire transport operation, including a mixed fleet of 40 x 7.5-tonne, 18-tonne and 44-tonne trucks and 30 trailers. After spending a further £400K on IT, telecoms, security and site improvements the transport operation is set to relocate on 12 April 2021.

This relocation will be topped off in late Spring with the delivery of two new 18-tonne MAN rigids and five new Lawrence David trailers which add to the 11 MAN tractor units it took delivery of in June 2020, at the end of the first lockdown. This is part of Miniclipper’s £500k investment in its fleet.

This fleet relocation frees up Miniclipper’s Billington Road site in Leighton Buzzard to expand its warehouse capacity in the area where previously the trucks and trailers were parked. 

It is investing a further £2.2m on this site to increase its capacity to over 10,000 pallet spaces on that site by October 2021. This combined investment will give Miniclipper over 450,000 square foot of storage and over 38,000 pallet spaces across five sites in Leighton Buzzard, Houghton Regis and Dunstable.

“We are proud to still be a family business after 50 years and we combine this personal approach with providing companies with a first-class transport, storage and warehousing service,” said Peter Masters, Miniclipper Logistics’ managing director. 

“That’s why we are still successfully trading and investing in our business 50 years on. That attention to detail and personal service is a rarity in our sector in 2021 and our customers appreciate it greatly,” he added.  

Miniclipper has ridden the pandemic storm very well with strong profitable growth, in particular across its pharmaceutical and industrial sectors. This was further boosted by landing one major new account in the print and graphics sector which required the complete outsource of storage, fulfilment and distribution services.  

It has maintained its three-year truck and seven-year trailer replacement strategy to service this growth in demand as it heads towards reporting its strongest ever trading year in 2020/21, looking set to beat the £15.2m it delivered in 2018/19 with a year-end forecast turnover of £16.1m as of 31 May 2021.