Fuelling a more upmarket experience

A well-known local convenience store and fuel supplier is pushing the envelope when it comes to produce, and offering such a diverse range of items that you would be forgiven for thinking you were in a speciality grocery store.

Established in 1930 under the trading name J Wardle & Son Ltd, the business has been serving customers for 86 years from the Boothferry Road site. The huge range of products on offer in the store, situated on the fringes of Howden, reflect a very different feel than that found in your average filling station store, which typically sells sweets, air-filled pasties, slightly flat pop and limp looking pre-packed sandwiches – at hugely inflated prices!

A trip to Wardles then, will leave you somewhat stunned. Manager Ian Beaumont has taken the shop in a very different direction and his range of hand-picked produce has turned the small shop on the side of the forecourt into something of a haven for the connoisseur. If you’re looking for something a little bit different – something with a more speciality feel – then you are in the right place. Ian has decided not to opt for the bog-standard ‘mass produced, mini market’ approach and has adopted a much more ‘select’ strategy. The majority of the items you will find on the well-stocked shelves have all been individually hand-picked.

A champion of keeping business local, Ian sources as much of his produce as possible from local suppliers and businesses. The fresh milk is from a dairy in Hook, the delicious range of hand-made, artisan pies are from award-winning local butcher Mounfield’s in Bubwith.

The majority of the stock on the shelves is Yorkshire grown or produced and even the hot drinks and refreshments are supplied from a firm just up the road in Selby. Twice per week the store takes delivery of a huge batch of freshly-baked, specialist Scotch eggs and sausage rolls – including a black pudding variety, Ploughman’s Scotch eggs and the infamous ‘Old Fart’ sausage roll, complete with beans. An avid wine collector, Ian utilises the services of a high-class wine merchant and broker from Corney & Barrow [suppliers to the Royal family and the sole UK agent for the import of exclusive wines from France] to stock his shelves.

With fuel prices on the rise motorists drive that extra mile to save money on their fuel, but don’t realise that they are forking out unnecessarily high prices for the ‘little extras’ they then pick up in store. As an independent fuel buyer and supplier, J Wardle & Son Ltd do not have the buying power of the multi-nationals allowing them to shave pennies of the price per litre of petrol. But they do have the advantage of independence when it comes to stock, value and prices in-store – and it shows! Energy drinks for example are more than a pound cheaper per can than elsewhere, so there are huge differences in price at the till.

The choice range of products and produce, fine foods, handmade pies and delicacies alongside the wide range of everyday groceries and high-class wines simply cannot be rivalled on price for miles around.