A Chippenham-based British logistics company, founded in 1925 as a milk haulier, that runs warehouses and transport for retailers, food firms and public bodies across the UK and Ireland, now part of GXO.
Wincanton is a British logistics company. That means it runs the warehouses, lorries and planning systems that other businesses use to get products from where they are made to where they are sold. Its own business lines for 2025 were e-fulfilment (packing and sending online orders), grocery and consumer, general merchandise, and public and industrial work. It also runs specialist automated high-bay warehouses, which are very tall storage buildings where machines do much of the lifting, and it sells a transport planning product called EyeQ. Its robotics and automation work includes Inteq Group, formerly known as Invar Group.
The company began in 1925 as Wincanton Transport & Engineering Ltd, a milk haulage business owned by the West Surrey Central Dairy Company, which later became Cow & Gate, Unigate and then Uniq. In the 1970s it added petroleum and temperature-controlled transport, in 1993 it moved into retail logistics by buying Glass Glover, and in 2001 it separated from Uniq and joined the London Stock Exchange. Later steps included buying CEL Group in 2008, working with Serco on prisoner escort services from 2011, and launching an energy logistics service called EnergyLink in 2016. Named customers include Sainsbury's and the Co-op. The Co-op work alone involves about 700 staff and over 500 vehicles, making around 130,000 journeys a year to as many as 1,000 stores. The pages we read do not give a mission statement for Wincanton, so we have not invented one.
Wincanton says about 20,000 people work for it across the UK and Ireland, at roughly 160 sites (a 2023 figure). A business directory lists its head office in Chippenham, Wiltshire. In April 2024 it was bought by the US-based logistics group GXO, and the UK competition regulator cleared the deal in June 2025 on condition that the dedicated grocery warehousing business was sold. Integration began in September 2025, and Wincanton now describes itself as operating as part of the GXO group. The sale of the grocery warehousing business was expected during 2026, so check Wincanton's website for the latest picture.
We did not find a culture statement or staff stories for Wincanton in the pages we read, so we cannot describe what day-to-day working life is like. Sir Martin Read is its chairman, and James Wroath, who led the company as chief executive, left in August 2025 to run another company.
A logistics company of this size employs a very wide mix of people. There are drivers and warehouse operatives, shift and transport managers, and planners who work out the best routes and schedules. There are engineers and technicians who look after automated equipment, software and data teams who build tools such as EyeQ, and customer service, health and safety, finance, sales and human resources staff. It is an industry most people only notice when it goes wrong. Wincanton's own website lists current vacancies.
Website: www.wincanton.co.uk
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