New Petit Forestier customer, Gloucester-based Mantinga, specialises in the supply of a full range of speciality breads and pastries. Many of the company’s products have a distinctly European flavour – such as its Baltic loaves, baguettes and rolls with pumpkin seeds or sesame seeds.

The breads and pastries are delivered in frozen format, which enables Mantinga’s customers in the foodservice, retail, hotel and catering trades to have fresh bread at their own convenience. Customers are free to bake small batches as required and can offer their own customers freshly-baked bread at any time of day or night.

Next-day deliveries

Ensuring that the products are delivered next day and in a pristine condition is vital to Mantinga’s service quality and demands reliable fridge vans. So the company chose a 3.5 tonne Mercedes Sprinter refrigerated panel van and a 3.5 tonne Mercedes Sprinter refrigerated box van from Petit Forestier on a flexible, three-year contract hire basis.

The deal includes local servicing and maintenance on the vehicles and the refrigeration systems throughout the entire contract term. Payment is made on a monthly basis, so there is no capital outlay up front – a benefit for smaller companies with limited cash flow.

As a new start-up business, Mantinga was keen to secure the most advantageous

and affordable financial terms when acquiring its first refrigerated vehicles, explains

Petit Forestier.

Vehicle quality, accessibility and overall convenience were also important factors in Mantinga’s choice of supplier, as well as the desire to ensure the very highest level of after-sales support, says the van supplier.

Roadside service

The Petit Forestier contract includes roadside and on-site support 24 hours a day, as well as extra support with driver training and vehicle familiarisation where required.

Steve Mackintosh, managing director for Mantinga says: “Paying for the fridges on a monthly basis means we can budget accurately. The van supplier controls all aspects of vehicle management on our behalf, leaving us free to concentrate on developing our own business. They are a very big company, but we are comfortable with that because it means

that their national and local support network is very good. We are about to order more vehicles from them.”

Petit Forestier has several clients, both small and large, in the bakery and related sectors, including Ginsters, Délice de France and The Sandwich Factory.