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In a wide-ranging chat for our second instalment of the Winter Tyres feature with Yokohama Off Highway Tires (YOHT), Commercial Tyre Business got to grips with how big the agricultural winter tyre market is in the UK. We also asked how Yokohama Off-Highway Tyres has fared with Brexit and Covid-19, and what advice they would give to agricultural fleets this upcoming winter.

In the first part of our Winter Tyre feature, Commerical Tyre Business spoke to Westlake about its approach to winter tyres in the UK market. Westlake has a growing profile not just in the UK but across Europe, where winter temperatures tend to be lower and the winters longer-lasting especially in the Northern European countries, so we wanted to know what they are offering drivers in terms of quality tyres for this season

Last Friday, we had the opportunity to talk to Commercial Director for CAM, Steve Daly, in the lead up to the company’s Monday morning announcement hailing the success of the integration between CAM International’s TiDaeX^TM and Bridgestone’s FleetBridge system.  The success of this integration is now realised and put into practice every day with the 26 commercial tyre service providers who are now live and benefitting on a daily basis from this successful integration.

The final part in Commercial Tyre Business’s latest feature takes a look at leading OTR retreader Kal Tire. Fraser Flint, Manufacturing Manager at Kal Tire’s UK operation gave his views on various facets within the retreading sector from the importance of marketing the role of retreading in the circular economy, to supply chain disruption, to the role of technology in retreading, to the impact of COVID on the demand for retreads in the OTR sector.

The newest instalment of our retreading feature for Commercial Tyre Business took us to the tyre software market, as TyreOps and founder of the company Joe Stapleton discussed TyreOps’s offerings for the sector.

Karl Naylor, the Country Manager UK for Apollo Tyres and Steve Miller, the UK Truck and Bus Radial Tyres Manager virtually met up with Commercial Tyre Business to talk about the manufacturer’s strategy for the TBR market as of 2021, but also their latest product developments that have been put out into the market, and how their extensive investment in sports marketing is impacting their strategy.

As we reach part 8  in our series on tyre retreading for Commercial Tyre Business, we talked to Jon Cottrell, UK Sales Manager for Truck and Bus Radial tyres at Hankook Tyre UK about how the extension of the company’s Alphatread range will help enhance its retread commitment towards the UK, why tyre manufacturers need to have a well-oiled approach to end users to survive and how independent retailers have a unique niche within the market.

Grantham based Vaculug Tyres is the UK’s biggest independent tyre retreading company. Acquired by the Zenises Group in 2018, the company has undergone a transformation in recent years. We recently took the opportunity to talk to Managing Director Jorge Crespo about the challenges currently being faced by the retreading sector and how the company has coped with the difficulties caused by the Covid-19 crisis.

Part 7 of the Commercial Tyre Business retreading feature put a spotlight on the UK National Fleet Account Manager for the Prometeon Tyre Group, Wayne Bell. Wayne revealed to Commercial Tyre Business his views on whether retreading is benefiting from new tyre imports, if retread tyres should receive tyre labelling in the future and how independent retread manufacturers can survive in an increasingly competitive industry.

In our latest retreading feature, Commercial Tyre Business spoke to Tony Stapleton, Head of Fleet Sales at the Continental Tyre Group about how the mindsets of fleet managers are starting to change in the industry, the synergies between Continental and Bandvulc and what customers need to do to ensure they maximise the potential to retread their casings.