Miniclipper Logistics celebrated its half century of trading on March 23 by announcing a £5.5m 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 four-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.
The relocation will be topped off 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 £500,000 investment in its fleet.
The 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 feet 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.
“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.”
