Where the best is second nature

Success Stories - Mr Cowpe's story

Being with BDS means we never run out of gas

“We started off our business with just selling ice-cream and meat. Now we have everything from olives and oranges to art and antique galleries. As well as a 200 seat restaurant, we sell home made pizzas, ready meals and fresh meat from off our own farms. And we still sell ice cream – over 80 flavours made with milk and cream from our own cows.

For us to run out of gas would be a disaster – particularly for the kitchens, cooking in the bakery, restaurant and so on, but fortunately that’s never happened while we’ve been with BDS. We’re on a scheme called ‘top-up’ – which means we know that we’ll never run out. BDS was our first supplier about 9 years ago; they were recommended by a friend and we’ve been with them ever since. They supply us with gas for the kitchens, cooking etc. and for the bakery. We’ve gone back to having a ‘proper’ bakery. It takes us 2 days to bake a loaf of bread because we don’t use additives and preservatives; we produce quality goods.

Independent people

We’re very independent – take our range of wines for example – we have over 700 wines – and not one is available from a supermarket or multi-national. They’re from independent private little vineyards from around the world. We don’t supply supermarkets even though some are trying to jump onto the ‘local’ bandwagon now. We support local suppliers and local people – because they support us. That’s another reason for going with BDS – they’re a local firm – but it’s not just that – the bottom line is they’re good at what they do.

Exemplary service

We get a very competitive price from BDS and their service is exemplary. Brian, who is our main contact, is fantastic; he’s great on customer relations, the way he comes over, very friendly but professional; so are the girls in the office. We have a good working relationship with them all. They’re very prompt; we never need to ring them up, they come once or twice a month to check on the levels. My view is, if you’ve got someone that’s good you stick with them – why should I change?”

Visit their website at: www.huntleys.co.uk

‘Welcome to the fold!’

Not long after the transfer, the driver called round, to check if we needed any gas – well that just confirmed all our thoughts about BDS. He was very personable, shook hands and said, ‘Welcome to the fold!’ You wouldn’t get some of the bigger companies doing that. And he had something between his ears. He’d noticed a few other gas tanks in the village and came with some leaflets to give out if people were interested. He told us about another special offer, which means we can get gas even cheaper still. That will certainly encourage us to make more use of the central heating this winter than we did last.

< Back to Success Stories