An AF Member for almost 20 years, Jason Cook is a haulage contractor based in Cambridgeshire. He started out in the workshop, got his HGV licence at 21, before moving into the transport office until his then boss called it a day. Jason took the leap to set up his own business 25 years ago with just one truck and today runs a fleet of 15.
“We move straw and hay, wholesale and processed potatoes, salad predominantly to Aldi, and we run a nightly service to Covent Garden Market.
“We also do a lot of machinery movements – potato grading equipment, big grain store conveyors, elevators. It’s quite specialist work, which we've been doing for the last five to 10 years.”
“AF membership came about when I first started on my own. This site didn't belong to me originally, but eventually I got the opportunity to buy the farm and part of the business, including a potato cold store.
“That’s when I was introduced to AF by an existing Member who ran the cold storage and bought his electricity through AF. I joined initially to buy electricity and fuel, which I was spending quite a lot on at the time.
“Back then, I'd probably got about five or six trucks. Before AF, I bought my fuel directly from Watson Fuels and Hardy Craske.”
Working with the AF Fuels team gives Jason insights he needs to keep tanks full at best price
“The switch to AF really gives you a bigger market to go for. I went to an AF fuel seminar about five years ago and realised the huge volume of fuel that AF is involved in. It means AF can hit the market and ask for a much better price.
“I've got good relationships with the people at AF. I think if you've got an issue, it's better with AF because they'll deal with it. Rather than being on your own, AF has got a bigger stick!
“We store about 28,000 litres on site and probably use another 10-20,000 litres on AF fuel cards per month when drivers are out on the road. We mainly use AF’s Keyfuels card, but we've had different cards over the years because they've set us up with whichever works best for us at the time.”
“Anything that I think I can do through AF, I do. When we built our house, we used a lot of building materials through one of the merchants via AF.
"I use AF for everything, really."
“I’m big on the Charge Card. If I want to buy something and they’re not an AF supplier, I can still pay for it there and then without the rigmarole of opening an account.”
“A lot of the time we'll have a conversation on the phone and sometimes I'm more ‘spying than buying’. I want to know where fuel prices are heading. AF might say buy today because prices look like they’re going up or hold off because there could be a penny drop. When you’re ordering the amount of fuel we do, a penny is quite a big thing. Especially when other suppliers might just answer the phone and take the order.”
“It’s not often AF can't get what I want. When the account manager first came to see me, all those years ago, she said “we can pretty much get you everything you want” - and they have! We've bought all sorts through AF: televisions, fridge freezers, laptops, iPads, Apple Watches.
“My daughter’s the next generation of this business. She does the bookkeeping and is more into the digital side – things like Instagram and the online benefits. She’ll definitely be interested in Fresh AF too.”
“We're hoping to put up a new shed and another new building, and I’d like to do something with AF on solar.
I saw John at one of the AF Open Day energy seminars and realised we might be missing a trick not having solar, so we’ve started talking through what might be possible. It’s going to be a brand-new venture and that’s exciting.”
Visit J S Cook's Facebook page.
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