Community
Depots across the length and breadth of the country
Building Business and Community Relationships
With depots based across the length and breadth of the country, servicing a vast range of customer needs, it is to be expected that each team has its own focuses, and agenda for sustainability. One of the biggest issues in many communities is a lack of understanding of the role played by major food and drink supply chain operations, such as those typified by Fowler Welch and its customers.
In order to combat this and bring our business closer to its local communities, our local teams go out into schools and communities to educate and engage with young and old alike in the values and responsibilities of the operation in their area. The aim of this is to develop relationships between the businesses and the communities in which they operate.
We want them to appreciate the simple facts of food and drink distribution, accepting that for every large vehicle they see on the roads, hundreds of satisfied families will be shortly taking the contents of those trucks off the shelves of their local supermarkets in the form of the freshest of products. Available only because of the dedicated 24/7 services we contribute.
Charity support
On top of this, at a country-wide level, our people support a chosen national charity, with events taking place across the network in support of this and selected smaller local charities. In recent years we have donated many thousands of pounds to organisations such as Macmillan, The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Epilepsy Research UK. Our chosen charity for this year is food redistribution charity, Transaid.
Road crashes kill 1.3 million people on the world’s roads every year. In sub-Saharan Africa, road crashes are the third largest cause of death behind HIV/Aids and Malaria. For the last decade, Transaid has been working to change this. In both Zambia and Tanzania, Transaid has partnered with a driver training school in order to build the capacity and skills of their driver trainers, and ensure they are teaching to a high standard. One of the ways Transaid does this is through the short-term secondment of individuals from Transaid’s corporate partner organisations. Whether it is defensive driver training, tyre safety or hazardous goods training, these professional volunteers work hard to ensure the trainers are teaching their students to an excellent standard. Each year, around 8000 HGV, LGV and PSV (public service vehicle) drivers are trained in this way. Next year, Fowler Welch will be one of the companies supporting Transaid in this manner, sending Driver of the Year winner Will Robertson and Driver Development Manager Paul Hughes to Transaid’s partner training centre in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. During their two weeks, they will work closely with a small group of driver trainers on a number of areas around driver training, helping to build their training methods, techniques and confidence.
To find out more about our work with Transaid, click here.
