A new fleet of 10 delivery vans has been introduced by Lewis Pie & Pasty Company, each carrying an amusing graphic which aim to catch the eye as they make deliveries to van sales customers across Wales and the West
Swansea based Lewis Pie & Pasty Company is bringing a smile to faces of people in South Wales with the introduction on a new fleet of 10 refrigerated vans on lease from Days Fleet, all carrying a different product image and amusing graphic which aim to catch the eye and make people smile.
The sign-written vans have been receiving admiring glances as they travel around South Wales each day, making deliveries to the company’s customers.
Each of the van designs are different, although they all follow the same pattern, with a large image of one of the company’s products on each side together with a brand logo for either Lewis Pies or The Lewis Bakery. But what is really catching people’s attention is the back of the vans, which carry the three main brand logos as well as a pun based visual and catchphrase, showing individual products in a different light.
Wilf Lewis, Managing Director of Lewis Pies, explained. “The vans are white and provided us with the prefect opportunity to highlight both the variety and quality of the products we produce at our Swansea base. Many people don’t realise that as well as savoury pastries produced under the main Lewis Pies brand we also make bread and cakes under the Lewis Bakery brand. It also seemed a good chance to remind people of our Award winning Wilfreds range of pies, the recipes for which were worked on with local chef Michael Knight.”
“At the same time, we wanted to give the individual vans an identity, to make them stand out on the roads and to get across something of the company’s ethos.” Wilf continued. “So we came up with the idea of doing something a bit more fun on the backs. Lots of the ideas for the slogans came from members of our staff and a designer then translated the ones selected into the graphics you see on the vans now. My favourite is the ‘Here be Dragons’ pasty, because my children love it. We’re very pleased with the way they have turned out and hope that they catch the eye while out and about. Our plan is to regularly change the routes each van runs on so that eventually they will have been seen across the whole of our van sales area.”
Lewis Pies sought the expertise of Days Fleet, an independent provider of vehicle leasing and fleet management solutions to conduct a detailed review of their fleet requirements.
Lewis Pies worked closely with Days Fleet’s Business Development Manager Mark Thomas to ensure that the vans were not only competitive on price, but to also ensure that they offered excellent fuel economy and improved CO2 emissions.
The Ford Transit vans have been acquired on a contract hire agreement with fixed monthly payments and maintenance services, enabling Lewis Pies to manage costs over the long term.
The vans will enable Lewis Pies to provide an even more reliable service to the cafes, butchers, retailers, fast food outlets and other customers to which it delivers its range of breads, sweet and savoury pastry products.
“We’re working hard to improve both the products we offer and the service we provide to our van sales customers,” said Wilf. “As part of those improvements, we needed to update a number of our delivery vehicles and Days seemed the obvious choice as using a locally based supplier fits with our production ethos of using local ingredients in our savoury pastries, breads and cakes. We were very impressed with how Days Fleet approached our requirements. They have over 25 years of experience of managing vehicle fleets, enabling us, as a business to continue focusing on our key priority – our customers.”
Aled Williams, director of Days Fleet said: “At Days Fleet, we pride ourselves on providing very high levels of service and support to companies operating fleets whilst assisting our clients’ fleet operations from initial vehicle choice, delivery and handover through to a highly transparent end of contract process.”