Since 1932 Weetabix has been a well-known and much-loved brand. Millions of households across the world enjoy their great tasting and nutritious cereals which include favourites such as Weetabix, Alpen, Ready Brek and Weetos.
Grosvenor Leasing’s relationship began with them in 2017 when the contract hire and fleet management specialist agreed to buy Weetabix’s 150 strong ‘owned’ fleet of cars and light commercial vehicles as part of a sale and leaseback.
This converted the fleet to a fully maintained contract hire agreement, offering Weetabix a wide range of benefits including improved cash flow, better budgeting and a comprehensive outsourced fleet management solution.
Drivers were immediately able to access a wide range of services and support, from servicing, maintenance and repairs through to accident management, daily rental, fast-fit items and European travel – all monitored, measured and reported on thanks to OSCAR365; Grosvenor’s market-leading, and award-winning online fleet management system.
By 2020, Weetabix was looking at ways of improving its vehicle policy, to offer drivers better choice and move towards ultra-low emission and electric vehicles. Keen that all changes were fully communicated, Weetabix asked Grosvenor to run a video conference workshop with 50 Weetabix drivers during the COVID-19 lockdown. This resulted in the new policy being successfully launched based on whole life costs, improved choice and lower emissions.
“The relationship with Grosvenor Leasing has been very beneficial to us financially and operationally,” said Stuart Branch, group people & IT director at Weetabix.
“We have also been impressed with their support around our fleet policy and choice lists, and the feedback from drivers following the workshop was extremely positive. By being on hand to present the thinking behind the policy, the impact on areas such as emissions and tax, why whole life costs are important, and being able to answer all of our drivers’ questions was important in launching our new policy.”
Mary Dopson-Taylor, customer services director at Grosvenor Leasing, added, “As, in the case of Weetabix, companies move to adopt alternative fuels we are encouraging them to look at whole life costs for their policies as it provides a far better reflection of the true financial picture for ultra-low emission and electric vehicles.
“Their initial on road cost is typically higher than traditional petrol or diesel cars, but during their entire time on fleet they work out to be more cost-effective, which is why whole life costs provide a more realistic financial assessment to base decisions on.”