Mainstream Turns 25!

This month marks 25 years that Mainstream has been providing quality freight and supply chain services to customers throughout New Zealand and around the world. In 1992 we started from scratch on the promise of freight from one big customer.

Back then Greg would do sales calls and Diane would take care of admin and customer services. Greg would often have to divert the calls to home and Diane would answer them whilst caring for their young family at the same time. Our humble beginnings saw us work out of a small warehouse located at Auckland’s Onehunga wharf. The windows didn’t close properly and the fog would roll in through the office on occasion!

The worst days were when the scrap metal barges came into port and unloaded. You couldn’t hear the phone ring when they were unloading.
If a customer wanted to drop off freight Greg would race back from sales calls and meet them at the depot to unload them.

At night we would load all the freight into trucks and cars and run it over to our linehual contractor and send them on their way all over the country. 

Word soon got around that we were in business and that we were achieving faster transit times than the bigger transport operators so it wasn’t long before we were being approached by new customers asking for us to do their freight.

We did it all, anything and everything we could. In mid-1993 we moved to larger premises in Auckland’s Sylvia Park. We were growing now and quickly. We had a reputation for being hard working, easy to deal with and getting the job done no matter what. Those are the characteristics we measure ourselves on even today.

We were well known for our excellent South Island service and so set up a small branch in Christchurch in 1994 to add to that service and to ensure we kept pace with the number of new customers joining us.

In 1996 we purchased our first truck, then another and another and so on. By then we were bulging at the seams in Auckland and needed to move to a larger site again. We also kicked off our own operations in Hamilton and Wellington at the same time. That was a busy time!

It wasn’t long before we outgrew our Auckland branch for the 4th time so in 1998 we once again moved to a larger site. The next few years saw a lot of the same: expanding our reach whilst all the time remaining focused on delivering an excellent service to all the customers that had joined forces with us. For many years we held off expanding our branch network while we focused on controlling the quality of our service standards.
But with time we decided that we wanted to grow. 2007 arrived and we completed our first take over: National Express.

2008 to 2011 was all about diligently navigating through the tough times of the Global Financial Crisis. We quietly soldiered on and remained focused on delivering our customers high levels of service whilst maintaining good value through smart cost management. We continued to grow.

The last ten years have seen us complete another five acquisitions including adding to our national network and logistics activities.  We have added branches, linehaul trucks and rail to our network.

We have come a long way, and like any business we’ve had our moments too. Like any growing business there’s been big hours, big risks and gambles and a few that didn’t go the way we planned.

Today, we have built one of the finest fleets of late model trucks and trailers in the country as well as a comprehensive network of 13 branches, three divisions suppling high quality domestic freight, logistics warehousing and Global freight all tied together with leading edge technology and a smart customer interface. Add to this the skills and efforts of our staff and we deliver a truly integrated and world class supply chain solution that we are immensely proud of.

25 years on and we have grown from 1 customer to over 2500 with many having been part of our journey since our humble beginnings.
Whether you have been customer from the beginning or one that has more recently joined us, we thank you for choosing Mainstream and for being a part of our journey.

Thanks for getting us here. As a business and as individuals we like to lead by example in everything we do. Watch this space.

Across Town. Across the Country. Across the World. Mainstream has it covered.