ASTRAK UK Ltd, based in Kirkcaldy and part of the Astrak group, one of Europe’s fastest growing undercarriage suppliers, has been appointed the UK dealer for Berco crawler undercarriage parts.
The focus of the partnership is to make Berco’s range of components more widely available across the country with Astrak UK carrying stock of Berco products as of January 2017.
Richard Paterson, managing director at Astrak UK, said Berco is “probably one of the most respected names in undercarriage parts” with products that “complemented” Astrak’s existing ranges.
“It’s not that the products do a different job to those that we’re already stocking but being manufactured by Berco, they carry the OEM quality brand that is well recognised in the marketplace,” he explained.
“What we are endeavouring to offer customers is a high level of availability on a world-class quality product range. We operate in a demanding and dynamic marketplace with users more and more expecting immediate parts availability and what we’re working to do is bring a premium quality OEM product closer to that point.”
Speaking on the mutual benefits of the new partnership, Richard said, “We felt it gave us a lead into another area of the market. By taking on the Berco range, we now have a premium product range that opens up opportunities that historically would have been difficult for us to break in on.
“Many larger operators, especially with dozers and bigger excavators, prefer to specify OEM undercarriage components because they believe the quality offers better value for money in the longer term. With the Berco product range, we can go with confidence to this area of the market with a service offering second to none and a product that often exceeds the quality even of the genuine OEM product.”
Richard went on to say that through the new partnership, Berco can take advantage of Astrak’s huge database of existing and prospective customers across the country and stocking locations in close proximity to those customers, with bases in Kirkcaldy, Manchester and Dartford.
Andrea Schiavon, aftermarket sales manager at Berco, commented, “Berco looks for alliances and partnerships that reflect shared goals and offer maximum market penetration.
“In line with our ambitions of growing our aftermarket business, we focused on Astrak as a forward looking, service driven company that have established themselves as the UK’s leading supplier of undercarriage parts in recent years. We look forward to a long lasting mutually beneficial relationship with the Astrak team providing our products at market leading service levels.”
