Business South August 2023

10 | Booth’s Logistics T T Richard Loader Booth’s goes nationwide with purchase REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT T T to page 12 0800 77 77 21 www.alltruckfix.co.nz Proudly supporting Booths Logistics • FLEET MANAGEMENT • MECHANICAL • SERVICE • ELECTRICAL • WELDING & FABRICATION • 24/7 BREAKDOWN SERVICE WE KEEP YOU MOVING. The purchase of South Island trucking business Summerland Express Freight by the North Island’s Booth’s Transport to form a national transport network is one of the latest developments in the growth of the privately owned Booth’s family business. Built on the back of opportunity and a can do/will do mantra shared throughout the organisation, the company’s story starts in the 1980s with the humble potato and a need. Graham Booth was a potato grower in Opiki, just out of Palmerston North, and needed to get his spuds to Auckland, so he bought a truck. One thing led to another and soon two trucks were needed. In the early ‘90s Graham enlisted his son Craig to take the wheel and before long there was a fleet of ten trucks driving between the Manawatu and Auckland with general cartage. By the mid 2000s the fleet had increased to thirty trucks and Craig brought his brother Trevor out of his corporate job and into the family business. Business continued to grow and evolve both organically and through acquisition of other regional trucking and warehouse businesses, carrying general freight including FMCG products, and construction materials. Seeing an opportunity to grow both geographically, and through an expanded range of services, a series of acquisitions commenced in 2019 with the purchase of Hastings based Tomoana Warehousing, Te Awamutu based Couplands Transport, Taupo based Great Lake Transport, and Whangarei based The Produce Connection. Over a 40-year period, what started as a single truck delivering the family spuds to market, Booth’s had grown to depots and warehouses in Whangarei, Auckland, Te Awamutu, Tauranga, Taupo, Rotorua, Gisborne, Hastings, Masterton and Wellington, with hometown Palmerston North remaining the head office. The opportunity to purchase the Summerland Express Freight business in the South Island was especially transformational for Booth’s. Company CEO, Dallas Vince, says the company’s North Island customers had been urging the business to do more for them on a national basis, and the purchase of Summerland’s provided a perfect opportunity to satisfy that strategic need. “We had wanted to become a nationwide carrier and looked at doing it ourselves and organically building it up, however the purchase of the Summerland business provided us with ten South Island depots from Nelson down to Invercargill, one hundred vehicles and a team of one hundred and fifty. “Nationwide we now have over eight hundred team members working across the business, along with four hundred trucks in the fleet, all operating as part of Booth’s Logistics.”

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