Eternity Meat, a meat wholesale company based in Balliang in Victoria, had been struggling to keep up with customer demand using its existing infrastructure, that was until they sought a non-traditional financeoption.
The booming transport business relied on old and out dated trailers one of which dated back to 1982, forcing the owner to borrow from business associates in order to honour his haulage contracts.
Owner Alistair Sadler said the older model trailers were beginning to negatively impact the company’s current clients;one issue was the meat-hanging rails were incompatible with the rails at the meat processing plant,which made unloading difficult.
“We got by and that, I suppose,is the key to our business: We say ‘yes’ and then we wonder how we’re going to do it!” said Mr Sadler.
When Mr.Sadler heard another transport company [WickhamFreightLines] was selling used trailers, he knew he had to move fast.
The trailers in question, the 1997 and 2004 model FTE fiberglass meat-hanger trailers are highly sought-after meat-hanger refrigerated trailers that are rarely seen on the open market.
In a bid to secure finance, Alistair contacted the companies he was already leasing trucks and other equipment from, but they were unreceptive.
“When you grow quickly, you get to a point where your financial exposure is such your lenders don’t want you taking on any more debt,”explains Mr.Sadler.
Mr. Sadler approached GoGetta, a specialist equipment funder in the transport sector, after a recommendation from a finance broker: a decision that allowed Mr. Sadler to get his business back on the road, improve efficiencies and added profitability to his bottom line.
Mr Sadlers said that each week one of his trailers costs him a mere $800 in rent, but it pays for itself over and over from the in come it’s generating.
“We’ve used Go Getta as a tool to get where we need to be,” Mr Sadler said. “It allowed us to quickly get the trailers on the road and working.
Had we waited six months until we had more equity in the business,w ewould have missed the opportunity.”