Manchester-based industrial specialist Fork Truck Tyres continues to grow

In mid-November Tyres & Accessories visited Manchester-based Fork Truck Tyres, a company that is rapidly becoming a key player in the Northern English industrial tyre business and considering its next steps towards expansion. T&A spoke with company founder John Grey, sales manager Tony Gallagher and warehouse manager Stuart Dorney in order to find out more.

Established in 2011, Fork Truck Tyres Ltd might appear to be a relative newcomer, but the firm’s relative youth belies the wealth of experience behind the company. Fork Truck Tyres was founded by John Grey, an industrial tyre specialist who brings 46 years of experience at some of the best names in the niche (including Watts and Starco) to the business. It all began in January 2011 when Grey got the opportunity to buy a single mobile industrial tyre press and sought to make a living by filling the gaps in the market left by other – often much larger – industrial tyre supply and fitment businesses. Work came in and the business grew at a pace, with the owners investing in Worldwide Tyre Marketing Ltd, a specialist industrial tyre wholesale business less than five years later in 2015.

John Gray describes Fork Truck Tyres as “…an independent business looking for local solutions. Not tied to a manufacturer.” Rather, customer needs are paramount. And – as a business – the leadership are “obsessed” with challenging themselves with questions like: “why are we doing things like that?” and “is that the right economically and ecologically?”

However, while company representatives are typically reserved about their recent success and while they do operate a local solutions-based strategy, no one that the company has grown significantly and achieved much for a 10-year-old business.

The first indication of ongoing growth that Tyres & Accessories noticed was the fact Fork Truck Tyres moved into their present Openshaw, Manchester headquarters just eight weeks prior to our interview. The business was previously located on the same industrial estate, but a bigger unit became available so the Manchester head office now has greater capacity for inside warehousing, industrial tyre fitting, tyre and wheel assemblies as well as external yard space. Having greater capacity makes a lot of sense when you consider that both the industrial sales and service operation as well as the Worldwide Tyre Marketing wholesale business are located in the same place. But that’s not all.

In addition to the Manchester hub, which employs six fitters and services the northwest, Fork Truck Tyres also runs a similar operation on the other side of the Pennines in Yorkshire. The company’s owners invested in the Yorkshire operation roughly five years ago in what must be described as a further example of its shareholders investing back into the business. Now the Barnsley-based Yorkshire operation employs two of its own fitters.

Fork Truck Tyres may be particularly strong in the north of England, but the company actually sells tyres and wheels across the UK including Southampton on the south coast of England and in Northern Ireland. The company even delivers the occasion spot order internationally, including as diverse destinations as the Caribbean and Iraq (here the local Coca-Cola production operation was the beneficiary of some carefully selected industrial tyre fitments).

All of these developments, together with the addition of the Worldwide Tyre Marketing operation has resulted in the Fork Truck Tyres’ partnership with Emerald Tyres, which is purportedly the largest manufacturer and exporter of solid industrial tyres and press-on bands from India.

However, despite the firms rapid growth and international connections, there are no plans for international expansion of the business at this point. But national growth is on the horizon, with Fork Lift Truck’s owners having already invested in a new press and compressor. The only thing slightly hindering the expansion is the new van shortage all vehicle manufacturers are currently facing due to the global chip shortage. However, once those challenges are overcome – either with alternatively sourced vehicles or by supply improvements at the OEM level – the company is ready for a sideways move towards further under-served location in the Great Britain followed up with plans for one to two more tyre fitting centres further north in the UK.

Ecological considerations and sustainable solutions

The secret of the company’s ongoing success is its desire to provide local solutions and, more specifically, the right tyre for the job. At the same time, the company has a strong environmental emphasis. In practice this means mobile fitment vans are subject to detailed fuel planning and casings are thoroughly graded for potential recycling (with some ending up in pyrolysis material recovery processes as well as surface materials and carpet underlay). And the fact that the company’s head office is subject to Manchester’s clean air rules means Fork Truck Tyre’s vans have to be Euro VI compliant (there had been talk of running electric vans, but due to the range and load-bearing capabilities required in the industrial tyre segment, they simply were not a practical option – perhaps the next generation of hydrogen-based vehicles will be the solution, the management team remarked).

Warehouse manager Stuart Dorney demonstrates how the sound generated by bouncing an industrial tyre can highlight quality control issues (Photo: Chris Anthony/Tyre Industry Publications Ltd)

In addition, Fork Truck Tyres is working on some pioneering plans in the tyre-fill space. The end product hasn’t been released yet, but it is due to hit the market during 2022 when the water-based solution combined with two grades of crumb rubber which can be recycled numerous times, is likely to make waves in its niche. For a long time, the only way to recycle industrial tyres was via the above-mentioned routes, with a small amount of industrial tyre retreading thrown in for good measure. However, the idea of converting recycled tyres into a water-based tyre fill that is itself recyclable is something new.

Such thorough consideration is also applied to staff training, with every new team member undergoing a 12-to-18-month industrial tyre focused course irrespective of previous experience. This course, which was developed and compiled internally by John Grey, has also attracted outside interest. Speak to staff at Fork Truck Tyres and no-one considers themselves to have “arrived” as an expert, but despite being obviously knowledgeable, they choose to be life-long learners in their chosen field. Perhaps this is why they are able to change between 16 and 20 industrial tyres per day per fitter – more than double the average of a mobile press operator (8 industrial tyres a day).

The same consideration is applied to investment too. Throughout the company’s history, the owners have been willing to put capital alongside their vision, once the right amount of critical evaluation has taken place. The new premises themselves aside, another particular clear examples of this approach is the inclusion of a 250 tonne press within the Manchester operation. This giant of a machine is capable of fitting a wide range of tyres and the whole gamut of Fork Truck Tyres’ chosen niche, right up to 15.5-25. As a result of all the factors discussed in this article, the operation is currently able to change between 6000 and 7500 tyres a year.

Taken together, Fork Truck Tyres’ strong growth, strategic (but not necessary exclusive) partnerships, green mind-set, long-term training plans and expansion goals all signal a business that has aspirations of raising its game – something that is fitting for a company that deals with so many fork-lift trucks!