Top Soil | Dandy's Topsoil ®

  Welcome to Dandy's Topsoil ~ 'Britain's Leading Topsoil Supplier'

'The Online Landscape Supplies Shop'

The story so far...

In the early 1800's a Chester man, named James Dandy, began selling fruits and vegetables from his family's allotment.

James and his family had been growing and selling fruit and vegetables from their market garden in Vicars Cross, Chester, for a number of years and decided that the demand was such that they must have their own shop or risk not being able to meet the increasing demand. James' home grown fruit and vegetables grew to be exceedingly popular with local residents and businesses who all recognised the quality of the produce from the family owned and run business.

“James Dandy Quality Fruit and Vegetables” was the first stall to be opened in what is now remembered as The Old Chester Market.

James employed other members of his family to help man the store six days a week,  

James finally left the business to his son who was named James Ellis Dandy.
James Ellis continued in his father's footsteps, employing other family members and expanding the businesses range of fruits and vegetables.

 
The shop grew and grew with the expansion of their own bicycle delivery service to local shops and restaurants; including five star hotels such as The Grosvenor Hotel and The Blossoms Hotel. However, when the market was demolished and rebuilt in the mid 1950’s, the Dandy family changed tack and moved back into farming.

 James Ellis Dandy and his wife had a son they named James Arthur Dandy and a daughter named Edna Dandy. James Arthur and Edna both grew up on the family farm, Tile Barn in Guilden Sutton, Chester.
 

After getting married to Gladys Rosa Dandy in 1944, James Arthur was offered a council farm in Bosley, near Macclesfield, which he farmed for a number of years. Tragically though in 1950, his youngest son, Peter Dandy, was accidentally killed at the age of two, whilst playing in the farm yard.

James Arthur, his wife Gladys and their eldest son (yet another James) decided that they could no longer live on the farm with the memory of what had happened and they returned to the family’s home town of Chester.

James was helped back into the swing of things by his sister Edna, now Mulvey and her husband Norman who had obtained a contract to distribute coal coming into Chester from Collieries in North Wales. They lent James and Gladys the money to buy an ERF eight wheeler tipper.

Between 1950 and 1975 James and his wife Gladys went on to buy a small number of heavy goods vehicles, based from a yard which they leased from The Waterboard in Tower Warf on the side of the Shropshire Union Canal in Chester city centre. James won a contract to maintain other companies heavy goods vehicles with his daughters husband Brian.

When James and Gladys came to retire in 1975 they sold all of the tools to their daughter Sheila and her husband Brian and the heavy goods vehicle to their son James.

After delivering everything from seafood to coal, James Jnr. and his wife Jennifer were offered a small quantity of topsoil which Harry Huxley, one of their drivers returned with after delivering some goods. Harry had agreed to take the soil without really knowing what he was going to do with it.

James asked around and the soil he had, soon sold; in doing so it created more work for his vehicles. James sent Harry back to see if there was anymore topsoil available, needless to say there was. They didn't know it at the time but they had just opened a whole new chapter in the family’s future. The business had firmly planted its roots in topsoil.

Over the next two decades the family business moved from the Tower Warf Site to a farm premises on Sealand Road in North Wales where James had struck a deal to store his now growing stock pile of topsoil with the then owner Horace Morgan.

The heavy goods vehicles which were once used to transport coal were now being used to collect and deliver topsoil. James and Jennifer began advertising their topsoil in the local press and sales began to soar.

James's secret was in the quality of the topsoil that he sold and word soon spread just how good this new soil was. Like with his grandfather almost a hundred years earlier, James faced the inevitable decision to either grow with demand or to risk losing customers.

James and Jennifer began selling gravel as a way to backload their growing number of delivery vehicles from local North Nest and North Wales quarries. Not only did this mean that haulage was maximised, but it also introduced a whole new product range to their growing customer base.

James, like his grandfather employed his own son Kevin Dandy within the business. Kevin later left the business to set up his own haulage company; Kevin Dandy Transport.

James and Jennifer's youngest son Adam Dandy came into the business in 1996 after leaving high school. Adam went on to complete a Business Diploma before committing to the business full time as a delivery driver and JCB operator.

In 1998 Dandy's Topsoil moved away from the normal way of selling topsoil by the grade i.e. grade 1, grade 2 etc... and became the first topsoil supplier to brand their soils, starting with the introduction of Lawnmix® Topsoil and Bordermix® Topsoil. This offered their customers a much clearer idea of which soil to select depending on its intended purpose.

In 2002 James and Jennifer's other son, Simon Dandy, registered a new concept called a URL. The URL he registered was www.dandys.com he didn't know it at the time but the internet would hold a big future for the expansion of the business.

After moving abroad and failing to receive registration updates the URL www.dandys.com was lost and Adam decided to register a new URL; www.dandys.org ; this meant that only 3 digits on the delivery vehicles had to be changed to promote the new website.

The family business grew as fast as the internet did, which was a rate which had never been seen before in the businesses long history. From the moment the Dandys website allowed it's customers to order online it again opened a new door in the company's history.

Adam sourced a single company to deliver the company’s goods to any location on the UK mainland; something which just a couple of years earlier would have been unthinkable.

Dandy's Topsoil went from being the North West's leading supplier of quality topsoil, to becoming Britain's leading topsoil supplier.

In 2006 Adam Dandy and Alan Bailey from Baileys of Norfolk got together to discuss the sharp increase in waste, poor quality soil medias, which were now beginning to threaten the sales of their own high quality topsoil. They spoke at length about how they must educate their customers on the fact that, although these waste soils were often much cheaper, they usually largely consisted of the contaminated fines gathered up out of skips, in an attempt by skip companies to avoid the new landfill tax which had recently been introduced.

They came up with the idea to form a new quality standard which would be recognised by the trade and public alike as the sign of quality and as such together they set up the British Topsoil Suppliers Association (BTSA) www.britishtopsoil.co.uk . The aim of the organisation is to protect both suppliers and buyers of quality topsoil. The members meet every year to decide how to develop the BTSA with the needs of the industry and the marketplace.  

In July 2006, www.dandys.org was awarded “The Best Gardening Website” of the year by a public vote.

In December 2006 www.dandys.org was awarded an “E-commerce Website Award”.

In March 2007 Dandy's Topsoil opened their second Landscape Supplies Centre at Stapeley Water Gardens in Nantwich, Cheshire.

Adam and his wife Clare Dandy bought 100% of the company's shares on May 15th 2007. The company now gained a young management team who were ready to take onboard both the opportunities, and threats, which the future may hold in store for them.

Shortly after the takeover of the business, Dandy's Topsoil was re-branded to incorporate a new modern image, changing the company's old blue and red colours and replacing them with bright and dark green.

The company rebrand stretched across the whole business and included a new registered logo, vehicle livery, new brochures and uniforms for the growing members of staff.

As well as rebranding the existing delivery vehicles, Dandy's purchased a brand new vehicle which was more environmentally friendly; this wagon was added to Dandy's now steadily growing fleet of in-house delivery vehicles.

In September 2007 Dandy's Topsoil were awarded the “Environmental Business of the Year” award.
In December 2007 Dandy's Topsoil were awarded the “Small Business of the Year” award.
In April 2008 Dandy's Topsoil was voted as a finalist for the “Welsh E-commerce of the Year” award and for “Environmental Business” and “Innovative Business” in September 2008.

Off the back of rising fuel prices in June 2008 Dandy's Topsoil built and commissioned their very own Bio-diesel production plant at their Chester Landscape Supplies Centre, in order to power their entire fleet of delivery vehicles in the most economical and environmentally friendly way.

The family business along with its new, young management team, prides itself on its ability to think outside of the box, enabling Dandy’s to create and introduce new and exciting products and processes into everything it does, along with it's unrestricted ability to react quickly to new market opportunities.

In August 2008, www.dandystopsoil.co.uk was launched along with 25 other product specific mini websites. The new E-commerce / Intranet website was launched with many technological benefits to the old website, some of which include; different customer payment methods and live tracking of delivery vehicles.

Still recognised as suppliers of quality topsoil, Dandy’s Topsoil now boasts an extensive product range including gravels, aggregates, barks, mulches, turf, grass seed, pebbles and cobbles, with more new and exciting products on the way.

Although Dandy’s Topsoil has expanded somewhat since its humble beginnings back in the 1800’s, the same family values still apply. As time has shown, Dandy’s always has and always will, hold fast to its values of delivering quality products to customers, whilst maintaining an exceptional level of good, friendly, old fashioned service.

Today Dandy’s Topsoil is ranked number 1 in the world by Google and other major search engines under the search terms “topsoil”, “Top Soil” and many other search terms relating to the nature of it's business.

If you'd like to share in the Dandy's success story you can become a stockist or regional distributor and by doing so take advantage of our stockist support program, please click here for more information…