While the headlines are full of reports about attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, as well as serious unrest across the region – causing costly delays to cargoes headed for the UK – Northampton-based Haddonstone is able to reassure its customers in maintaining normal delivery times.
Despite US and Royal Navy warships providing protection to commercial shipping, many vessels are avoiding the Suez Canal and taking the much longer route around the southern tip of Africa, incurring serious time and financial penalties.
As a leading member of the UK Cast Stone Association, family owned Haddonstone has a well-established supply network that primarily relies on quarry companies here at home; this also helps keep down the company’s carbon footprint. In addition, those materials which are not British are sourced from mainland Europe or Scandinavia.
Haddonstone’s Production Director, Katherine Kates, comments: “By volume, our most significant suppliers are the Derbyshire quarries where our aggregates come from, plus the sand from King’s Lynn. The furthest afield we go for raw materials is Belgium where our white cement is produced; it is being brought down from the port of Goole in Yorkshire. We normally get two 30-tonne loads of cement a month while our two silos hold 40 and 70 tonnes apiece which means there is always a month in reserve. We also hold at least a month’s worth of the dried limestone for our dry cast product lines in silos, while the aggregates for the Tecstone range are in bays in the main yard.”
Interestingly, not only does Haddonstone try to reduce its environmental impact through its transport policy – buying as close to home as possible and using low emissions vehicles – the company also strives to reduce its power usage on site. For example, solar panels generate some 80-90% of the electricity required for its mould workshops which consume timber from the UK and Europe. And the factory has just taken delivery of its first electric forklift truck as an alternative to gas- and diesel-powered models.
Katherine concludes: “Not only did Haddonstone continue to meet demand during the boom in home improvements through the pandemic, but we have managed to hold our prices better than the market during the energy price crisis as we are a relatively low user of power in our processes. So, we are able to report that our delivery times are as normal: quoting four weeks on stock items and 10-12 weeks on bespoke architectural products.”
Customers might also like to know that it is not only raw materials that Haddonstone likes to buy close to home, having a long tradition of recruiting and training staff from around its Northampton premises. In fact, the company’s Christmas newsletter featured three generations of the same family, one of whom has been working in its workshops since the mid-eighties.
For further information, call 01604 770711 or visit www.haddonstone.com