A Warrington-based road and rail freight, ports and warehousing company, long known as Eddie Stobart, which became part of Culina Group in 2021 and now trades as Stobart.
Stobart is one of Britain's best-known haulage brands, famous for its lorries. According to Wikipedia it offers road haulage, rail freight and ports and warehousing across the UK, Ireland and Belgium. The company's own history page calls its network the UK's largest shared-user, pay-as-you-go transport network, using road and rail, with over 2,700 vehicles, about 3,500 trailers and 43 operating centres. Its services cover retail and consumer goods, ports and container transport, pan-European logistics, and rail. A shared-user network means customers share vehicles and depots, so each only pays for the space they use.
The company's origins are in Cumbria. Wikipedia says Eddie Stobart began an agricultural business in the late 1940s, while the company's journey page dates its beginnings to 1960 as an agricultural subcontractor at Hesket Newmarket. It was incorporated as Eddie Stobart Ltd in 1970, and his son Edward Stobart led its fast growth from 1973 before his death on 31 March 2011. Later milestones include the first Stobart Rail round-trip from Daventry to Glasgow in 2006, a stock market listing in 2007 and the 2012 move into automotive logistics. In July 2021 Culina Group bought the business, and in September 2021 it was rebranded Stobart with white trucks. We did not find a separate mission statement.
Stobart's headquarters is at Stretton Green Distribution Park in Warrington, Cheshire. Wikipedia names key sites including the Daventry rail terminal and warehousing, the Widnes rail depot and ports site, and depots at Crick, Burnaston in the Midlands and Bardon in Leicestershire. The company's journey page says it employs around 5,000 people, but that page is undated, so the number may have changed. It is now a subsidiary of Culina Group, which is owned by the Müller group.
The company's website highlights sustainability and community work, including a Stobart Sustainability Fund, and says rail freight can cut carbon by up to 76 per cent compared with road. That is the company's own claim. People tend to know Stobart through its lorries and the fan culture around them, but we did not find independent staff stories. Edward Stobart, the first leader, is credited by the company with driving rapid growth in the 1980s and 1990s.
A haulage and rail freight business employs many kinds of people. There are lorry drivers, who need the right licences, and rail terminal staff. There are transport planners and traffic office teams who match loads to vehicles, warehouse staff, engineers and fleet workshop technicians, customer service and account managers, and finance, IT, health and safety and human resources people. If you like being on the move, enjoy mechanical work or like organising complicated schedules, there are routes in. Stobart's website lists current vacancies.
Website: www.eddiestobart.com
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