MIDDLESBROUGH
New contracts – Alex Adams( left) and Cliff Holdsworth are celebrating Titan Trailers ' recent contract wins.
Titan effort – the Middlesbrough firm’ s 29-strong team construct top-quality trailers at its modern, 14-bay, 60,000-sq ft assembly factory.
The trailers despatched to Birmingham and Shropshire cost around £ 110,000 each. –“ A little more than our standard trailer but there’ s more work goes into them,” says Alex. Indeed, to ensure they’ re as leakproof as possible, each trailer was filled with water up to 12 times to ensure any gaps are plugged.
And later in 2025, in what could be a UK first, Titan is poised to roll out its first fully leakproof trailers – again with the inevitable rising demand for food waste transportation in mind.
Alex explained:“ We’ ve been getting increasing interest from other large waste movers, so we ' re in the process of getting a new model built in Canada, which we call a Titan fully leakproof trailer.
“ Increasingly, we’ re building custom trailers for specific needs – that’ s a big part of our business now, as we did with the London Energy ones.
“ So, we still have our bread and butter trailers, but the new recycling rules mean we all have to adapt accordingly and we think we’ re in a great place to do that.
“ We aim to assemble 100 trailers a year here on Teesside and our latest products should account for between 12 % to 15 % of our annual turnover, with more and more customers moving away from a landfill specification trailer to a recycling model.
“ We like to think that if a customer comes to us with a problem, we can come up with a custom-made solution – we like a challenge!”
Currently, Titan rolls out two trailers a week from its purpose-built Grangetown factory for the aggregate, recycling and waste industries.
The full product range usually sells for between £ 80,000 to £ 100,000 – a little more than some competitors, maybe, but as customer sales and service manager Cliff Holdsworth says:“ We’ re a long-term trailer – others only last three years, ours can last 10.”
And while London Energy decided to apply its own branding, Titan’ s recently re-ventilated paint shop can produce some eye-catching work with first-class finishes.
A growing demand from the bulk haulage market and that move from landfill towards recycling means Titan is constantly evaluating the type of trailers it needs to make.
And developments such as the Teesworks complex on the site of the old Redcar steelworks, along with the shift towards recycling, will potentially mean even more opportunities for Titan.
Until recently, all Titan UK’ s trailers were made from aluminium and parts shipped in from Canada and the USA.
But with market volatility on the other side of the pond, as well as the transport cost and environmental savings to be made from sourcing materials closer to home, suppliers in UK and Europe are now increasingly being used.
Indeed, since it started in 2006, Titan has always risen to challenges by reacting to the markets and keeping a keen eye on what’ s happening next.
The key to it all, of course, is the quality of its products – all expertly assembled by its highly-skilled Teesside team.
And with an eye on the future, it now looks set to not only benefit from that new recycling legislation, but it has its eyes on other areas too.
Cliff said:“ We know about things like Sizewell C in London, where there’ s going to be a big new nuclear plant, so we’ re already in talks with people who are looking for trailers for that.
“ Then there’ s the new Heathrow runway coming up when, again, trailers will be needed.
“ So, yes, we’ re always thinking about what ' s coming, as well as the present.”
Alex added:“ If you want the best, come and see us – we believe we build the best trailers on the market and they’ re proudly made in Great Britain.”
Visit titantrailers. co. uk
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