J&M Murdoch: Family that Lives and Breathes Trucks
2024 has been a highly successful year for J&M Murdoch as it snaps up the awards for Transport News’ “Scotland’s Most Innovative Haulier” and Truckfest Scotland’s “Best Kept Showcase Stand”. Coming off the back of year-on-year growth, 2024 has been quite the year for family-run and owned haulier and waste management specialist, J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd. Not only has the company snapped up enviable industry accolades such as Transport News’ “Scotland’s Most Innovative Haulier” for 2024, but the firm has also leapfrogged ahead of industry peers in being a frontrunner in the electrification of its fleet – boasting two fully electric skip loaders.
J&M Murdoch feature in T&L issue 267.
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According to J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd, one of the key drivers behind its success at the Transport News Awards was the firm’s investment into, and introduction of, Electric TED (Tomorrows Environmental Decisions) into the fleet. A fully electric skip loader, TED was introduced into the J&M Murdoch fleet as a means of tackling the firm’s carbon footprint and forms part of a strategic partnership with Volvo (who supplied TED) to both demonstrate and assess the viability of electrification within the waste industry. Notably, the firm was the first haulier in Scotland to run the vehicle commercially, placing J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd firmly as a role model for the industry.
At present, TED runs alongside the pre-existing diesel fleet, primarily handling jobs within the locality where range and battery considerations are less of a challenge. Already, the vehicle has proven a bit of a hit both within the company and amongst the client base, with many clients explicitly requesting TED for their jobs. As such, J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd quickly followed up the investment with the addition of its second fully electric skip loader, Electric TES (Tomorrows Environmental Solutions) as of this month (September, 2024).
Mandy McAdam, Transport Manager for J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd said: “We were very proud to win the award, especially when you know who your competitors in the industry are. It just proved to us that we were headed into the right direction. The investment [in the electric skip loader] was considerable compared to a diesel, but we wanted to be leaders and show that it could be done, and that you can run this type of application using an electric vehicle.
She added: “You have to look at your business as a whole, including the residual value and cost of the vehicle. They are expensive compared to a conventional diesel vehicle and you absolutely need the volume to cover it. We cover the central belt of Scotland in addition to the islands and into Argyll; these locations wouldn’t be particularly good for that due to the range, but as we do a high volume of local work, we’re able to put two into the fleet and monitor the workload going forward.”
——- About J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd. Founded back in 1965 by John and Margaret Murdoch, J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd is a family-run and owned company with a track record in transport and waste management services about to celebrate the 60th year in business in 2025, run by siblings John, Drew, and Helen, alongside Tony Cairns.
Their passion for trucking is evident in just about every facet of J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd as a business as well as the extracurricular activities of the family, operational team, and even its ex-drivers.
Outside of the core range of services including, skip hire, roro, tradewaste, bulk waste haulage, tipper, aggregates, and plant transport, John and Drew build and restore vintage trucks as something of an organisational hobby, including the running of its own “Monday Night Club” for vintage enthusiasts. The Monday Night Club unites with past drivers and enthusiasts to restore and build many of the project vehicles before showcasing them up and down the country. No doubt you’ll have seen J&M Murdoch at a number of truck shows throughout the year, including at the likes of Truckfest Scotland and Swedefest in Ipswich.
This year’s vintage restoration mission was to build a Volvo with a V8 engine. Described as a “labour of love” by Mandy McAdam, the entire workshop team contributed to the project alongside family members to an exceptional result. In recognition of their hard work, the Murdoch team successfully snapped up Truckfest “Best Kept Showcase Stand” at Truckfest Scotland 2024, serving as testament to the passionate culture behind the wheel with our excellent display of trucks.
“They’re all truck guys at the end of the day. It’s their passion, it’s their hobby, it’s what they do building the trucks from the chassis up,” enthused Mandy McAdam. “It’s a real labour of love for the family, they’ll do a full day of work in the business then start on the vintage projects at the ‘Monday Night Club’. “It’s amazing to see the fleet of vintage that have been completely restored; they take great pride in them as they go up and down to the shows during the season (April – September), always spending time with any stand visitors talking over the restorations, showcasing some working trucks, show trucks, and trucks that have been retired (and restored) from the fleet.
It’s the real definition of a labour of love for the family.” ——- Digitalisation, Sustainability & Environmental Commitments
Although J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd has all the hallmarks of a traditional haulier & waste management company, recent years have seen the company evolve quite considerably from those traditional processes into a far more modern, digitally-oriented, and environmentally conscious business. To achieve this, J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd brought in Mandy McAdam, an established industry name with 27 years of expertise at one of the nation’s largest hauliers and a champion for female representation in the industry, as an active member of Women in Transport, mentoring young women new to the industry. We spoke with Mandy to learn more about her work at J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd.
Mandy joined Murdoch’s approximately four years ago as part of a broader strategy to revolutionise operations and effectively future-proof the business for the coming years. Receiving ample support from the company leadership and allowed significant freedoms in terms of her day-to-day strategy, Mandy has been a driving force behind digitalisation and sustainability efforts that have brought efficiencies into the operation with paperless systems. Sharing some insight into her time at the company, Mandy explained: “Over the past four years we’ve really digitalised the compliance side of the fleet, including everything from driver daily walk round checks and defect reporting through to the workshop, tablets for driver workloads, and auto-downloads for tachograph cards and vehicles.
We’ve come a long way in the last four years and have really streamlined the compliance side of the business.
“The family are all fully dedicated to trucks through-and-through, so where I’ve really brought in the value is on digitalising the fleet compliance. Everything is now up-to-date, very visible, and we can now produce better reporting and results since all of our information is in real-time, we’ve noticed a real difference in our compliance scores (we’re consistently sitting in the green).” In addition to digitalisation, J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd also had a huge investment in its very own aggregates wash plant as a means of tying sustainability to the business and really connecting the dots in terms of the circular economy.
Through the aggregates wash plant, the company processes various types of construction and demolition waste to repurpose them into useful construction products, namely: sand, 10mm, 20mm, 40mm, and Type one 100% certified recycled aggregates. Not only has this new arm to the business proven highly fruitful from a commercial perspective, but it’s also allowed for the company to develop closer ties with key clients standing out as an environmentally-driven business. As for the future, it’s clear that J&M Murdoch & Son Ltd is on an upwards trajectory in terms of both commercial growth and tackling its carbon footprint.
As aforementioned, the organisation has already introduced a second electric skip loader to the fleet servicing our valued customers in the local area. Furthermore, the company has also laid out expansion plans that will see the company expand its operational footprint, infrastructure, and open up growth opportunities across Scotland. Regarding future plans and investments, Mandy McAdam clarified: “We’re increasing our fleet size on an ongoing basis, our existing operating centre is a remarkable 150 year old ex cotton mill with so much local history, which has height but not the acreage for our growing business.
We’re now looking at planning permission to move into a new purpose-built site which will be designed from the ground-up to have all of our workshops, maintenance, offices, and a purpose-build museum for vintage trucks.
We’ll also be opening up a new depot towards Edinburgh so we can open up across the East of Scotland.”
Transport & Logistics – Driving The Industry Forward