A group of rural ambassadors has hailed the enduring quality and innovation of a market-leading trailer maker.
Members of the Young Farmers Ambassadors travelled from across Europe to make a pilgrimage to the Deeside factory of Ifor Williams Trailers.
They are all former members of the Young Farmers Clubs organisation who have been awarded scholarships as part of the YFC Discovery Programme to study agricultural methods in different parts of the world.
The Ambassadors organise annual reunions which rotate between the four home countries, all of whom were represented on the trip to IWT Deeside on Deeside Industrial Park.
The group, founded in the 1950s, also included members from Scandinavia, France and Holland.
The IWT Deeside factory is where Ifor Williams Trailers makes its flagship horseboxes and low loaders.
As well as being sold through a network of 50 UK distributors, the trailers are also exported all over the world with distributors as far afield as Australia and New Zealand.
They were welcomed by the company’s Business Development Manager, Peter Nesbitt.
The guided tour took in the shop-floor and ended at the factory’s sales area where the full range of the iconic trailers is on display.
Huw Williams, one of the trip’s organisers, from Aberystwyth, was extremely impressed with commitment to quality and innovation.
He said: “We are very grateful to Ifor Williams Trailers for allowing us to come on a visit, we have learned a great deal.
“It was great being taken on a guided tour. They are extremely professional and it is obvious why they are the most popular trailers in Europe.
“They carry out rigorous tests and there is great attention to detail, it’s fantastic here.
“I have wanted to come here since I was 18 and I have not been disappointed.”
James McDowell, from Ballymoney, County Antrim, in Northern Ireland, was equally impressed.
He said: “There’s more to building a trailer than I initially thought, it’s more sophisticated than I imagined. They’re very robust trailers.”
David Heminsley, who lives near Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, knows a thing or two about quality engineering because these days he works as a technical specialist for JCB.
He said: “There are a lot of parallels between what goes on in here and what goes on in our own factory. It’s impressive.”
Mark Elston, who now runs a plant hire firm, Elston Hire Ltd, in Eccleston, near Chorley, in Lancashire, emphasised the value of Ifor Williams Trailers as a manufacturing company.
He said: “I think the company is very good for the economy. I believe the UK is short of manufacturers. What I’ve seen was very impressive.”
According to Peter Nesbitt, he was delighted to have the opportunity to showcase the operation at IWT Deeside.
He said: “They were very interested in what we do and many of them are customers already.
“They were obviously very keen to be here and the tour was particularly rewarding because there was so much interest and they asked so many good questions.
“They’re practical people so, as well being commercially astute, they know a lot about keeping equipment going so it was great to hear that they were so impressed.”
