Chillspeed moves up a gear! 

Chillspeed Ltd has changed hands.

Geoff Lazell, who took over the business from founder, Peter Whetter back in 1997 has decided to hang up his van keys and retire, having sold the company on to Des Smith and Stuart Martin. Des, the new Managing Director has a long association with Chillspeed through his involvement with various food manufacturers and Stuart, the Operations Director worked for Chillspeed as a driver several years ago. Stuart went off to do other things, including managing a fleet of vans for a home delivery company. Now, he and Des feel the time is right to pool their experience and take over this highly successful business and drive it forward into the future.

Having personally managed Chillspeed for almost 16 years and grown the company into one with an enviable reputation for reliability and quality of service, Geoff was very keen to pass it on to someone equally committed to the highest possible standards. “Having known Stuart professionally for some 14 years and knowing of Des as a customer for almost as long, I am quietly confident that Chillspeed has passed into safe hands”, he believes.

With 27 years of continuous trading behind the Chillspeed brand, the name has become a hallmark of experience and excellence in the world of temperature-controlled logistics.

Geoff feels there is no point in rushing into retirement when he can ease himself into it gently. In order to effect a smooth transfer of ownership and a seamless continuation of service to its many customers in the food and pharmaceutical industries, he will therefore act as a consultant to Chillspeed for the next two years.

Des and Stuart are determined to continue the fine tradition of ‘hands-on management’ which has characterised Chillspeed’s trading history for over a quarter of a century.  “Geoff – and Peter before him have set the benchmark”, says Stuart, “but Des and I feel we can breathe new life into Chillspeed and will be going ‘that extra mile’ (in every sense of the phrase), to move the company up another gear.  We have already generated new business after less than a month ‘in the driving seat’ and have just added a new Mercedes Vito van to the fleet. Exciting times are ahead”! 

Geoff Lazell (left) handing over the keys to Stuart Martin	The new addition to the fleet

July 2013

Chillspeed turns up the heat!

Innovative as ever and staying firmly on the cutting edge of technology, Chillspeed are pleased to announce the latest enhancement to our temperature controlled delivery service.

Fitted with the latest GAH Rapier refrigeration unit, the most recent addition to our fleet of vans now offers a temperature range from the usual -25°C all the way up to +25°C.  By reversing the normal cooling process, a heating facility can now be provided which will be particularly useful in extremely cold weather periods.  This will benefit customers with such food products as chocolate and fresh eggs as well as those with pharmaceutical products, for all of whom the lower chilled and frozen temperatures are just not suitable.

Proprietor, Geoff Lazell says, “With our ATP class ‘C’ thermal insulation certification, we can now confidently offer the ultimate in total temperature control to an even wider customer base, regardless of what the vagaries of the European climate may challenge us with”.

April 2012

Note:  Chillspeed has been featured in the April 2012 edition of “Van User Magazine”.

Chillspeed flies high!

In a departure from our usual ‘bread and butter’ delivery work for the food industry, we were pleased to recently be involved with the Anglo-French company, Airbus Industries and their new ‘super-jet’, the A-380.

Contracted by Airbus UK in Bristol, manufacturers of the wings for the Airbus aircraft, we journeyed to South Brittany in France to collect ‘raw’ carbon-fibre panels.  In their un-cured state these have to be kept frozen prior to being shaped, hence the need for reliable temperature-controlled transport.

With our long-standing reputation for complete door-to-door product care, Chillspeed were a natural choice for such a critical task.

Using Brittany Ferries’ Portsmouth to Caen overnight freight service, we were able to offer the client a p.m. collection on day 1 for an a.m. delivery on day 2, with total temperature control and logging throughout the journey.

Clearly, even in component form the wings of this fabulous new airliner were too large to fit in a Ford Transit van, so several ‘flights’ were needed as each set of components came off the production line.  By the time the last trip was completed, such was the smooth way the job had gone that the driver even had time for a coffee-break and photo-opportunity in the shadow of the famous Mont St-Michel in Normandy.  Chillspeed wishes “Bon Voyage” to the Airbus A-380!

A Chillspeed vehicle pauses by the 11th Century Mont St-Michel in Normandy en-route to Filton near Bristol, once home of the iconic and supersonic “Concorde” and where the Airbus wings are now built.

November 2010

Chillspeed’s Skeleton Crew!

Following 2008’s unusual job, providing a frozen environment for a film crew (see “Chillspeed goes to War” below), 2009 & 2010 have seen us involved in yet more support work for the TV industry.

This time, the occupant of one of our vans was definitely deceased – by about 2,000 years!  Unearthed at Caistor St Edmund near Norwich, a male skeleton was found in what appeared to be a shallow grave.  Once the tribal capital of Queen Boudicca’s Iceni tribe before being occupied by the Romans, Caistor is an important archaeological site.  It is owned by the Norfolk Archaeological Trust and is currently being investigated by the Caistor Roman Project (www.south-norfolk.gov.uk/venta).

In late 2009 we transported the skeleton, dubbed “Caistor Man” to Dundee University, home of The College of Life Sciences and The Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification for detailed forensic investigation.  There, scientists who were deliberately left unaware of the origins of the skeleton were to carry out various tests to try and determine as much information about him as possible, including carbon dating, DNA testing and facial reconstruction.  In early 2010 we brought “Caistor Man” back home again.

Shine Productions Ltd has made a four-part TV series called, “History Cold Case”. This focuses on life in Britain through the ages, determined by forensically examining various human remains.  It all sounded grimly fascinating and certainly made a change for us from our usual cargo of fresh herbs or chilled chickens!  In fact, Don Clarke, the driver who collected the boxed skeleton from local project volunteer, Hazel Leese was pleased to observe that this was the first cargo he had carried that was actually older than him!

Although there was no requirement for temperature controlled transport, the TV Production Company felt that such an important and fragile historical artefact could not be entrusted to any of the national couriers and so contracted us to provide a dedicated vehicle and all the careful cargo handling for which Chillspeed has such an enviable reputation. 

We are pleased to report that “Caistor Man” made the long journey from Norfolk to Dundee and back again without incident.  When it comes to reliability, we like to think that no-one can pick a bone with us!

Hazel Leese with Don Clarke and Caistor Man (he’s the one in the box!)	Neatly packed and ready for the journey up the Great North Road

Footnote:  The series was shown on BBC2 in May 2010.  Unfortunately, the forensic investigation team were unable to glean sufficient information from Caistor Man’s skeleton to provide enough material for a one-hour programme and this particular episode had to be dropped.

Photographs reproduced by kind permission of Shine Ltd & Norfolk Archaeological Trust.  May 2010.

Chillspeed goes to War!

Probably the most unusual job the temperature controlled courier firm from Diss in Norfolk has ever been asked to do was assisting a film production company recently.  No, it wasn’t supplying a cast of thousands with chilled sandwiches or frozen ice cream but providing a sub-zero environment for just one actor, a cameraman and a director.  Not making any sense? – No, neither did it make any sense to proprietor Geoff Lazell when he took the call booking the van!

Well, to explain to the mystified reader, here is the story.  A film company from London were using the Muckleburgh Collection museum near Cromer in Norfolk as a location for filming a series of TV programmes entitled, “Great Battles” , one of which was the battle of Stalingrad in the second world war.  As any student of military history will know, the tide of that epic struggle turned decisively in the Russian’s favour after many months of siege by the German army when the harsh winter weather played its crucial role.  The Russian’s were well equipped for the -25° to -30°C temperatures and icy winds whereas the Germans were not – and duly paid the price with a crushing defeat.

As part of the representation of this particular aspect of the battle, the film company wanted to film a ‘soldier’ equipped in the uniforms of both armies being subject to below-freezing temperatures and figured that a refrigerated vehicle might just provide the stage!  So that is how one ‘volunteer’, authentically clad in the uniforms of the day came to spend two periods of 30 minutes or so shut in the back of a Chillspeed van with the freezer unit going full blast whilst being filmed with a thermal imaging camera! 

Sure enough, his Russian uniform protected him from the icy blast and the camera showed little drop in his body temperature.  As expected, his experience in the German uniform was altogether less comfortable and a significant loss of body heat soon showed up on the camera.  (Apparently, his chattering teeth and general shivering were a bit of a give-away too!)  Naturally, the cameraman and director were well insulated throughout but happily the standby medical team were not needed to treat the actor either and he soon recovered in the summer sun, none the worse for his experience!

As for Chillspeed, although more used to transporting cold ham than cold hams (so to speak!), it was nevertheless all in a day’s work for this long-established and highly experienced refrigerated transport firm.  One cannot help wondering what on earth they will be asked to do next though – haul icebergs for a re-make of “Titanic” perhaps?

Footnote:  The series was shown on the National Geographic channel in late 2008.

Photographs reproduced by kind permission of Windfall Films Ltd.   June 2008

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