K&L Freight – Brief history over 30 years

30 years ago a new transport company opened for business in Northwich. K&L Freight’s business at the time was based around UK deliveries using the company’s trucks from its base in Northwich. The owners soon realised that K&L Freight’s key customers had started to sell their products into Europe. In response to this demand the company started to send its trucks into Europe fully loaded with customer deliveries.

Nothing in the world of transport stands still and after several years of trading owners Martin Kidd & Chris Buckley could see that customers had started to trade with companies outside of Europe and so again the company evolved and started to handle container loads – to China, India and Turkey in particular. As the business expanded this became the largest part of the company’s business.

Chris and Martin were still keen to expand the business further and the next logical step was to build a team to market and handle imports by sea and air, which was set up in 2010. The initial plan was to import from the company’s export markets of China, India and Turkey, though this was soon expanded to include the United States and the rest of South East Asia. Each year team members have been added as this side business has steadily grown.

Fast forward to 2019 and 30 years of trading later the company continues to evolve, turnover is in excess of £10 million and it remains owner managed which is becoming increasing rare and is something the owners are very proud of.