Fifty not out!

The family-run firm of L.W. Surphlis & Son has been affording a top class service to the farming and building industry sectors in Northern Ireland now for over 50 years and is still going strong. Irish Trucker speaks to the firm’s Colin Surphlis about the history of the company and its current state of health.Like many ambitious, progressive businesses, the firm of L.W. Surphlis & Son has come a long way since its humble beginnings when things manual, laboursome and costly hampered day-to-day progress for a small, family-run enterprise.

Times have changed but so too has the Newtownstewart-based business. From the mobile shop, to the advent of the forktruck and the bulk bins through to the installation of fully-automated blending plant, L.W. Surphlis & Son has gone from strength to strength.

Over the years, the Drumlegagh-sited operation (overlooking the agriculturally-rich Derg Valley) has seen its business mushroom.

While many changes have been effected, the nature of the Surphlis business has remained fairly constant. It continues to act primarily as a general merchant specialising in the supply of all sorts of farming and building needs to a burgeoning list of customers spread across counties, Tyrone, Donegal, Armagh and Fermanagh.

Whether its land drainage pipes, fertilisers, fencing posts, animal feeds etc, L.W. Surphlis is the place to shop.
In addition, the company has its own blending plant and batching operation with which they manufacture quality animal feed using the best quality of barley, wheat and corn feeds from Belfast mills such as James Clow and Clarendon Feeds.
With a fleet of four tractor units,4 bulk trailors and two 13.6 metres curtain-siders and six bulk lorries, all 25 employees at L.W. Surphlis are kept busy servicing the demands for bulk supplies or those for 50kg or 25kg bags from personal callers to the company headquarters.

Hands-on
Indeed, such has been the demand for the company’s self-produced feedstuffs over the years that Colin Surphlis, grandson of company founder Lowry Surphlis and son of current Managing Director, Maurice, explains that business has been booming for quite a long time in that department.

“I’d say that the volume of business we’ve been doing in that line has increased by about 50% over the course of the last ten years and considering that the health of the farming industry around here can’t really get any worse, we’re fairly confident and optimistic that that sort of growth in business will steadily increase in the coming years,” enthuses Colin, who is also joined by his brother Adrian in operating a hands-on style of management at L.W. Surphlis & Son.

Also, the company is also renowned for its capacity to supply and erect quality farm buildings such as beef units, hay sheds, calf sheds etc. Such ancillary activities were crucial to the continued growth of the company not so long ago when the BSE crisis threatened to greatly erase its volume of business with the farming community.

And in a world where image is everything, the team at L.W. Surphlis & Son place a lot of emphasis on making sure that each and everyone of their fleet is kept clean, neat and project a good corporate image of the business.

Family-run
In this respect, all associated with L.W. Surphlis were more than delighted that their 1999 Registered Tractor Unit won the overall award at the Mondello Truck Show in Naas in August last.

“We pride ourselves on the fact that all our vehicles are well maintained and kept in good shape. It’s important that the right image is sent out.

“Our customers and members of the general public have often remarked how well our vehicles look on the road.
“We think it’s important that the red cab and cream bodies with their distinctive red and white stripes are easily recognisable and instantly associated with our company.

“Competition in all aspects of business is very strong these days and anything that will get you noticed and enhance your reputation in business is very important,” Colin opines.

Staying one step ahead of the posse is something which the family-run firm has specialised in doing ever since the company was founded by Lowry and Lena Surphlis exactly 50 years ago.

So what’s the secret behind the company’s success? Colin again:
“We have great faith in the quality of the product we manufacture and also the quality of the products we buy in and sell to our customers.

“The level of service we give to our customers is also something which we can stand over. It is fast, reliable and ever since we constructed our own shed, we have been able to purchase a greater volume of material from suppliers in Belfast, Lishally, Dundalk, Greenore and Dublin Docks pass on the savings to our customers arising from such a greater economy of scale.
“Before we built the shed, we bought in our dairy nuts or whatever in much smaller volumes from Belfast. It wasn’t nearly as efficient or as cost-effective as the way it has been since we’ve had our own shed up and running.”

Computerised
Conceived in an era of post-war austerity but now mushrooming in times of greater wealth and prosperity, the success story that is L.W. Surphlis & Son continues to go from strength to strength. Not that anyone of the Drumlegagh-based team has any plans to become complacent about the good times that are currently being experienced.

In this regard, it is particularly noticeable and significant that the company decided to expand greatly on their blending process which had been inaugurated in 1989.

Reacting to a greatly increased demand for their existing and new custom base and having the ambition and foresight to identify a window of opportunity then presented to them at that time.

And so it came to pass that in 1993 a decision was made to purchase a stationary mixer to meet the demand emanating from the market.

Then three years later, a 33,000 sq. ft. fully computerised blending plant was constructed. However, according to Colin, consolidation rather than expansion or diversification is, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, the name of the game for L.W. Surphlis and Son.