Page 65 - HUB-4 Magazine Issue 91

Bulk Handling
Hopkins Estates is a true family business,
founded in 1972 by Bill Hopkins – who remains
at the helm as managing director – supported by
his son Nathan and various grandchildren.
Originally a property and development
company, it grew into a multi-faceted
organisation with interests in commercial and
residential property, farming, transport and
aggregates.
By 2018, the success of its concrete and aggregate operations
was attracting the attention of several ‘majors’ and was sold
to Tarmac, leaving Hopkins more scope to focus on
construction and farming opportunities. One of those
opportunities was a large earthmoving project requiring a fleet
of tippers and – unable to secure the vehicles locally – Nathan
used his experience of the haulage market to acquire several
trucks, just as the country plunged into the Covid crisis.
• ‘It wasn’t our intention to get back into the haulage
industry but we were left with very little choice,’ said
Nathan. ‘The lack of availability on the tipper front was
mirrored when we needed a large volume of concrete for
one of our development projects.’ Acquiring a fleet of four
volumetric concrete trucks, the family was “back in the
mix”, initially to ensure its in-house construction operations
had a reliable source of material but soon it it was
supplying an ever-lengthening list of external customers
under the new brand name of Hop Mix.
With the business continuing to grow and a suitable site
identified at the firm’s headquarters in Wincanton, Hopkins
was now in the market for a batching plant and managing
director Bill and son Nathan met Simon Cook, general
manager of the concrete division at Liebherr GB, to discuss the
options. ‘We had run several batching plants at our facilities in
the past and wanted to ensure that we were able to obtain a
consistently high level of productivity and quality from each
batch,’ said Nathan. ‘Simon went through every detail with us
and that saw us settle on a 3m3 Mobilmix 3.0 plant.’
Left to right: Nathan Hopkins & Sam Hopkins
The Mobilmix 3.0 offers users up to 132m3 per hour output
with Liebherr’s Litronic-MPS3 control system and is
constructed so that break-down and re-assembly can be
undertaken in just a few days. ‘The site we are currently on will
be redeveloped and knowing that we can easily relocate is a
bonus for us,’ added Nathan.
Batching plant manager Guy Stannett commented: ‘I’ve
worked with a variety of plants over the years and have to say
that this is one of the easiest and most productive systems I’ve
used. We know that we can easily meet our current needs with
this plant and as things pick up, we have the assurance that
we can keep increasing production when it’s required.’
Getting the concrete to sites quickly is the job of 11 Liebherr
HTM 905 drum mixers mounted on Scania 420P XT chassis
allowing a 9m3 capacity. Hopkins knew exactly what it was
ordering, as Nathan explained: ‘The drums have proved
themselves for decades in the UK market. They’re exceptionally
well made and very reliable with everything being built to
allow for easy operation whether loading, discharging or
cleaning.’
The rapid uptake for Hop Mix concrete has proved a pleasant
surprise for Nathan. ‘The trucks are all out almost every day
which has been a great start for us. We’re not going to predict
any sort of volumes but if we can carry on in the same vein as
the first few months have been, we’ll be very happy.’
www.hub-4.com Mar/Apr - Issue 91
| p65 |