Vaculug remains committed to saving the environment with innovative retread tires for its expanding customer base
Since 1950, Vaculug Ltd (Vaculug) has been a pioneer in sustainable tire retreading, offering practical fleet management solutions for customers across the UK and Europe while embracing environmentally friendly practices. With its manufacturing facility and headquarters located on a 12-acre site in Lincolnshire, Vaculug also has offices in London and Leicester and has acquired two further businesses in the past five years, doubling its turnover.
Jorge Crespo joined the company at the beginning of 2020, and as current Managing Director, he describes the last five years as a journey, starting with the onset of the pandemic and how it impacted the business, before revealing plans for the future of Vaculug. “The first two years following the pandemic were volatile, as the company was affected by everything going on in the world – and then we had a freight crisis,” explains Jorge. “Freight containing products from Asia or the Americas went up from around $2000 to $17,000 per container. We navigated that hurdle, made a lot of changes internally, and worked on developing our systems. We also created the Vaculug Academy last year, where the idea is to bring students and apprentices into work to provide them with experience and help bridge the generational skills gap.
“One of the bigger issues in our industry is difficulty finding technicians. I think a large majority of the younger generation have been studying at university, more than they were 50 years or so ago, but that does seem to be changing, and people are looking at practical, technical jobs. We are trying to help with this by engaging with colleges, local authorities and local education institutions and are on the board of the Greater Lincolnshire and Rutland Cornerstone Employer Group. The courses are becoming more practical and rooted in relevant work experience. We are also recruiting 17-to-19-year-old apprentices and our plan this year is to give them relevant work experience, thereby, hopefully creating managers of the future.”
Investing in people and processes
Focusing on continuous improvement, Vaculug has recently been investing in two main elements of the business: people and systems. “We believe that any successful company nowadays is a combination of those two strengths,” Jorge continues. “In terms of people, we’re striving to continue to grow and attract new talent, because many of our people have retired over the last five years. We collaborate with universities, particularly University College London and Oxford University, St. Peter’s College, where we’re working with some of the professors to bring theory and academic background into practice. Additionally, we’ve doubled the size of our operation teams and expanded our sales, finance and customer service teams. We work very closely with our suppliers to develop the right products and constantly look for ways of doing things differently – we’re paying a lot more attention to automation of systems and processes in the factory. Further investment is being made in our business units. In the last three years, we’ve opened depots in Kent and Swindon with service vehicles to create a vertical integration, where we can give a more comprehensive service to our customers.”
The acquisition of Scottish company, Tyre Fair, has also enabled Vaculug to provide a higher level of customer service. Based in Scotland, this is a critical location as it allows the business to become localized and expand while being closer to its customers.
Alongside customer service, sustainability is an integral company focus, and Vaculug is the first tire retreader in Europe to achieve B Corp certification. “Sustainability is part of our DNA,” highlights Jorge. “By definition, we are sustainable because we retread tires at the end of their life and essentially remanufacture a new product, minimizing the amount of waste in landfills. We are also working hard to reduce material used in the tires, as well as lobbying various organizations. Last year, we engaged with a public affairs company, called Hive Strategy, to generate greater public awareness about the use of manufactured and retread tires. We’re also trying to mandate some of those tires into public procurement, similarly to what is currently going on in North America – it’s saving companies money, while making the public aware of the impact these decisions can have.”
Vaculug’s winning combination of honoring the values and warmth that come from a family-owned business, alongside introducing new people, developments and investments has been crucial to fostering 75 years of success. “We continually strive to be adaptable, which means thinking outside the box and undertaking a lot of predictive analysis in terms of how long tires are going to last for our customers,” Jorge elaborates. “Our understanding is that the moment you stop growing, you start dying. We’ve been growing for the last five years, and we’ve implemented several positive changes, so 2026 is going to be time for consolidation. We will be focusing more carefully on costs, which have been challenging over the past couple of years with the increase in minimum wage and national insurance, alongside massive inflation. The cost of doing business in the UK is increasing dramatically and we need to look at where and how we spend money, and ultimately how we can get the best value for our customers.
Organic growth
“As a small to medium enterprise, we are extremely dynamic but there is always room for improvement,” he concludes. “Looking ahead to the next five years, we plan on becoming more structured, while continuing to engage as much as we can with our suppliers, customers, and employees. It’s important that we listen to what people have to say. I’d also like to see the business expand vertically and horizontally through acquisitions – we want to start exploring the bus and coach sector, as there aren’t many key players in that particular field, so we see a big opportunity there. We are very excited about the next couple of years. I think we have a lot of plans in the pipeline.”