Owens Group operates a fleet of about 600 trucks and vans which travel the length of the United Kingdom, delivering goods on behalf of other businesses.
“With a fleet of that size, we burn a tanker [of fuel] a day. So before this, we were ordering fuel a week or a fortnight in advance.
“But once this [war] came, there was an immediate cut [to that facility] and the prices went up overnight.”
While some of the company’s contracts include fuel escalators, allowing the price paid by the customer to fluctuate depending on the cost of diesel, many do not allow the firm to recoup increased fuel costs.