For 115 years, Ringtons Ltd has delivered tea, coffee, and sweet treats door to door to more than 220,000 customers, including cafes, restaurants, hotels, and workplaces around the UK.
With more than 45 million Ringtons drinks produced every week, the beverage specialists are steeped in British tradition. First delivering their goods from a horse and cart, a key distinguisher is its doorstep delivery service, now carried out by its 300 strong fleet.
Comprising of 260 vans and around 40 cars, Ringtons’ fleet typically avoid using motorway networks instead focusing on delivering goods around smaller urban areas, completing low milage trips. As a carbon neutral business, Ringtons has a focus on consistently improving its environmentally friendly efforts. Bolstering these efforts, the organisation has pledged to convert all vans to electric by 2034.
Challenge: Evolving fleet needs
Ringtons has utilised Allstar Business Solutions’ fuel cards for more than a decade, having initially switched to benefit from its vast network meaning drivers could refuel almost anywhere. However, like all fleets, Ringtons is now carefully considering its roadmap to a fully electric fleet ahead of the government’s 2030 deadline for ending the sale of new ICE vehicles.
The tea and coffee provider therefore integrated electric vans into its fleet, but the question of how to efficiently manage payments for charging these vehicles was soon raised. Ringtons realised that it was not practical or possible for drivers to be only recharging the vehicles when on the road.
The challenge, therefore, was how to effectively manage its mixed fleet of electric vehicle (EV) and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to ensure no impact to the deliveries the drivers were making, while also not having any of its drivers out of pocket for refuelling or recharging their work vehicles.
Enter Allstar.
Allstar’s combined solution for a mixed fleet
Following the success of utilising Allstar’s fuel cards for its petrol and diesel vehicles, the relationship has gone from strength to strength as Ringtons’ needs and its vehicles have evolved. Allstar was able to cater to its changing requirements, adding EV services and charging cards to support the new fleet. The beverage experts adopted the Allstar One Electric fuel card for its EV vehicles in the business’ portfolio, before being one of the first to pilot and then integrate Allstar Homecharge to harness the power of home charging to fuel drivers’ vehicles for a full day’s travel.
Allstar Homecharge helps simplify payment for EV fleets charging at home, all managed through one supplier with complete visibility of home charging and payments across Ringtons’ fleet. As it is hardware agnostic, Homecharge could easily and quickly integrate with the hardware already installed at driver’s homes.
Any home charging payments are made directly to their drivers’ energy supplier, eliminating cumbersome expense reimbursement processes, helping improve efficiency, reduce administration, and removing the payment complexities that Ringtons previously experienced when using traditional expense reclaim process. Allstar can then combine all their traditional fuel, EV charging – whether at home or on the road – into one consolidated invoice, giving them visibility of spend across the fleet.
For Ringtons’ employees, this mitigates any out-of-pocket expenses, administration or bill shock, something that has never been more critical with the steep rise in energy prices and cost of living. Additionally, drivers have access to their vehicle at home charging history through the Allstar Driver Homecharge portal which they can also use to manage home energy tariffs details, have visibility over home charging sessions, and view when and how much EV charging has been paid for by their employer. Today, Ringtons uses 12 Allstar One Electric fuel cards and has six drivers on Allstar Homecharge and has plans to add additional drivers to the service upon delivery of new EVs.
By utilising Allstar One Electric, drivers have the option to use the public Allstar network when on the road if they need to refuel during the day, as well as access to Zap-Map to ensure they can view all charging sites on the network and source the most convenient one to stop at.
Allstar as the partner of choice
Stephen Killinger, Operations Manager at Ringtons Ltd, said: “Allstar is our partner of choice for our mixed fleet as it can support both our traditional vehicles, our EVs and we know it will continue to serve our needs as we continue to evolve long into the future.”
“It’s an innovative partnership, and their combined road and home solutions supports us, taking the pressure off me by managing the electrical expenses as well as improving convenience for our drivers. This means I can spend less time sweating the small stuff and more time focusing on other important jobs. The team is always on hand to help with any issues, but they rarely crop up, it’s been smooth sailing.”
“The ability to pair the Allstar One Electric card in the Zap-Map app was extremely valuable for one driver. Having realised he had less than 10 miles of charge and about to start his working day, he used the Zap-Map app to find his nearest Allstar accepting charge point was less than a mile from his location and free for use. He was able to get to it and charge up, limiting any impact on his working day. This is incredibly valuable.”
An all-electric future
Looking to the future, Ringtons aims to move away from diesel vehicles as soon as it can and instead have all drivers using EVs. Throughout its transition it will continue to look to Allstar for tools that will support it which will include further utilising Allstar Homecharge to ease the recharging process.
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