Such is the pull of the local craft food at Westmorland’s service stations that drivers cross their legs to get to them. So says Sarah Dunning, chair at Westmorland, which operates Tebay Services in Cumberland, Gloucester Services on the M5 and Cairn Lodge Services on the M74 in Scotland.
Of course, Gloucester Services is familiar to Forecourt Trader’s audience having won Forecourt Trader of the Year for its South Services in 2015.
Speaking at the Forecourt Trader Summit earlier this week, Dunning told the audience how customers won’t find the likes of Greggs or Subway at their sites. “We have a very simple model, which is a farm shop and a kitchen. Essentially what that means is with the kitchen, we make all our own food within our business. It’s all simple, homemade, clean food, which is easier said than done in this day and age.”
Meanwhile, the farm shops are all about small local producers. “We try and collect together as many interesting local craft producers as we can, and we’re a platform for them.”
The farming and local link goes back to the 1970s when Dunnings’ parents ran a farm. The M6 was built through their land so they built a motorway service area to take advantage of all the traffic passing through.
The buildings that house the farm shop and kitchens keep that farm link. They were agricultural in style to begin with and have evolved to include eco-friendly attributes.
The business’s relationships with local suppliers have been nurtured across the years. “These aren’t the sort of relationships that you can have for six months, drop them and then come back. This is an ongoing relationship.”
The company works with about 350 local producers, all within 30 miles of its sites. And because some of these are very small businesses, they often don’t have all the rigorous systems in place for packaging and barcoding. This is where Westmorland comes in: “We work with them to get their fantastic products to work on our sites. It’s a win-win with both parties benefiting.”
Dunning concedes that pricing is a sensitive issue in the industry and especially at motorway service areas.
“We don’t try to be the cheapest. We can never do that with our business model. We try and create a really good product that’s accessible in price.”
She says a Greggs sausage roll is much cheaper than Westmorland’s sausage rolls, which sell at over £5 each however they contain 80% meat and you have to be really hungry to eat one.
Dunning says their aim is to deliver value for money rather than a ‘cheap’ product. “But we have to tread a careful line; we can’t be too niche,” she says because they need to serve everybody who goes to their sites. She accepts that local food does not work everywhere and says the company’s Truckstop is much more price sensitive than the other sites.
Recruitment is a big issue for Westmorland – as it is for most operators.
“If any of you have been to Tebay, there are more sheep than people there. We have to work hard to get good people and to keep them,” Dunning explains.
“We provide a lot of benefits. We have a minibus fleet that brings in people from all the local village, for example.”
She adds that with the company’s business model – doing everything themselves from cooking to graphic design to designing their buildings – they work hard at upskilling staff and once they have done that, they really want to hang onto them.
The demographics of the work force have changed too with a lot of younger people working at the company.
“With Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they have expectations from the employer; just being given a job, and money for doing that job isn’t enough. I think we have to see that in a really positive way, which keeps us on our toes. The younger generation definitely wants more flexibility in their lives and they want their values and interests at home to align with work much more than previous generations did. It is important to tune into that and see how you can make it work for you. You want the best people in your business so you can’t see it as an irritation. You have to work hard to get the best people.”
The next big thing for Westmorland is its expansion into urban territory with the new Tatton site near Manchester Airport on the M56, which will open in spring 2028.
“We are looking at a different demographic there, as it’s quite urban,” says Dunning. “We’ll have all the airport traffic as well as the footballers and their wives.
“We won’t change our ethos for Tatton but we will experiment and be flexible about what trading looks like.”
The only cloud on Westmorland’s horizon is massive disruption on the M6. National Highways are replacing eight bridges on the motorway, with work expected to last until 2031. And one of the junctions affected is where the company’s Truckstop sits, with that junction being shut for four years.
“It’s a big community issue,” says Dunning. “It’s a big business issue for us, but it’s also a big issue for everybody in the community that uses a car. And so, we are campaigning hard and I think the key for us is getting National Highways to consider local impact as part of their solution. We all feel that local impact is too important to ignore.”
