| 53 REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Hilton Haulage Container transportation is one of the many services provided by Hilton Haulage. T T Big fleet - page 55 processing of food products, feeding the world and staying resilient through tough times. The district is also heavy on ancillary services who back up all of this production and processing, whether that is engineers, house builders, or the local pie shop. “They are all critical to South Canterbury’s economy, which is really driven by the strength of the businesses and the people who run those businesses.” In the service industry, Scott says Hilton Haulage doesn’t drive growth of the local economy, but can help to grow an export-driven economy by offering the fastest speed to market as possible. Anything that can be done to get our customers’ product to market quicker is a win - whether that is improved roading, improved rail, or improved facilities at the port.” Still, South Canterbury needs more people, more housing, more infrastructure, and more people to service that infrastructure. “People should be able to come here, have a good lifestyle, and have somewhere to go in the weekends,” Scott says. He references the new CPlay adventure playground currently under development at Caroline Bay, towards which Hilton Haulage has contributed $50,000. “These things are really important for the health of our province. If we provide these facilities, the growth is really limitless for South Canterbury.” Proud suppliers of Hilton Haulage. 155A Hilton Highway, Washdyke, Timaru 03 688 6638 www.workoutfitters.co.nz STEELBRO CONTAINER HANDLING SOLUTIONS Steelbro sidelifters develop new facility in Christchurch. It’s a full ‘turn-of-the-wheel’ with Steelbro going back to its roots, designing, building and looking after their own machinery. Steelbro is better prepared than ever to serve our customers here in New Zealand and internationally, and are proud to support Hilton Haulage towards their goal of becoming the country’s most trusted logistics provider. The new Steelbro facility at Dakota Crescent in Christchurch is home to Steelbro’s head office and design facility. Additionally it’s where new builds, repairs and servicing, spare parts supply and R&D operations for Steelbro’s global operations take place, meaning that the business can efficiently build new sidelifters for the New Zealand market, as well as servicing and repairing existing lifters in the region. CONTACT US (03) 3488 499 sales@steelbro.com support@steelbro.com spares@steelbro.com Greg Bailey 021 331 990 greg.bailey@steelbro.com Innovative transport solutions STEELBRO has been producing innovative, high quality solutions for the transport industry since Steel Bros Coach Factory was established in Christchurch in 1878, building its engineering skills through the advent of motor transport and into the deregulation of long-distance trucking, where the company now stands at the leading edge of the global commercial transport industry. Brothers Joseph and David Steel grew their business quickly with a reputation for producing carriages of an extremely high standard. Around 1900 they made tentative steps into producing ‘motor carriages’ and received their first commercial body-building orders for delivery trucks. Throughout the 50s and 60s, Steel Bros was New Zealand’s leading motor body building and engineering company. With a staff of 90, the company had several large manufacturing plants in Christchurch and Auckland, and began to export to countries in the South Pacific, then South East Asia and the US. When the New Zealand railways system was deregulated in 1983, and road transport operators were relieved of long-distance restrictions, STEELBRO (as the company was now known) began to wind down its vehicle assembly and motor body building business and concentrate on its production of trailers instead. By 1990, the innovative design, high quality manufacture, and excellent value of STEELBRO’s Sidelifter had made it the preferred option for operators around the world. “The effect of the Sidelifter’s success was so profound that STEELBRO started to concentrate on trailers, container trailers, and Sidelifters,” says STEELBRO business development manager Greg Bailey. “Our Sidelifters are a world-class product with durable construction and an easy to use design, boosting productivity and reducing costs to give your organisation a clear competitive edge.” In the early 2000s, STEELBRO opened a manufacturing facility in China, the main source of top-grade steel STEELBRO uses, to better support the expansion of its global markets for the Sidelifter. In 2014 STEELBRO passed out of Steel family ownership and the Christchurch manufacturing facility was closed for the first time in 130 years. The new owners, Howard Porter, are another old family operated business from Western Australian who specialise in truck trailers and special transport solutions. They recognised the value in the STEELBRO brand and invested significantly in the Christchurch head office, marketing, and research and development, and the Christchurch team continued to run the global STEELBRO operations and sell sidelifters around the world. “By 2019, we needed a facility for our R&D in Christchurch where our design engineers and technicians were based. We built and then quickly outgrew this facility as our Christchurch clients began to return to us for service and repairs. The next step was STEELBRO building our own lifters for New Zealand again. We purchased a larger premises in 2021 so we could manufacture and service our own lifters from the ground up. It has taken off like a rocket and we’ve doubled in size since with more than 20 staff on the ground now. We are back to looking after our customers directly, and that’s the most important thing - being able to back up our product.”
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