We were all delighted to attend the Knapen dealer day in Holland last week. Now not all dealer days are exciting and once you have been in the business 30 years another round of chats can dull the senses.
This one was a very good one. One of the take home was that the Krone Group - led by Bernard Krone IV (Herr Ingenieur) is now the largest manufacturers of trailers in Europe. A fourth generation family company really caring for its customers. Now greater than long term rivals Schmitz. Krone are relatively low ranking in the UK as they were reluctant to make trailers greater than 4 meters high - leaving the likes of SDC and Lawrence David to rule the roost here.
However 4 or so years ago they purchased Knapen Trailers to aquire a place in the Moving Floor market. Then they dived in again and purchased Schwarzmuller who make up to 11,000 trailers per annum. Crucially for us, some of this eleven thousand are Schwarzmuller Walking floor trailers. So in this move Krone have positioned themselves to not only be the largest in floors in Europe but also possibly the World!!
So by accident Newton Trailers is one of the largest sellers of Krone Group products in the UK market and exclusive supplier of Knapen and Schwarzmuller walking floors. Well done us.
What does this mean for the UK? Well something and nothing. Krone Group obviously bring scale and buying power to the game. Axles, tyres etc can be group purchased. However the world of floors bimbles along at a different pace with Aluminium being the big differentiator to other products. Aluminium purchasing is a dark art and no one really gets it 10 out of 10.
But the new position of Schwarzmuller in the Group gives Newton access to extra capacity to increase our position in the UK as the biggest moving floor manufacturer in the UK market. Hopefully we will give our customers here the best outcomes and best moving floor ecosystem - Product tick; parts tick; hire tick; workshop and repairs tick; one family run company supplied by another family run company caring about our customers.
Posted by Andrew on 23/06/2026
