Alfons Wittrock Öl GmbH has been distributing Q8Oils products in northern Germany for more than 10 years. To celebrate this strong partnership, we asked them to answer a few questions about the past, the present, and the future.
1. What is the Wittrock origin story?
The Alfons Wittrock company group is a medium-sized family business with more than 55 years of experience in the mineral oil industry and was founded in 1963 by Mr Alfons Wittrock Sr. The range of services offered by Alfons Wittrock Öl GmbH includes the distribution of heating oil, fuels, lubricants, and AdBlue®, as well as fuel cards.
Alfons Wittrock Technik (AWT) is a recognised specialist company that deals with all matters relating to tank and vehicle technology. Alfons Wittrock Stahl GmbH sells structural and reinforcing steel, metal profile sheets, and accessories, among other things. The range of services is completed by wiro Entsorgung GmbH.
In addition to a container service, the waste management company also offers disposal services for waste and recyclable materials. The group of companies maintains its own network of gas stations throughout the Weser-Ems region with several wiro petrol stations and car wash centres. In addition, we are a founding member and shareholder of Tankstellen-Netz-Deutschland GmbH, a medium-sized gas station network. Our group of companies also operates a KEDI Hotel in Papenburg with 89 rooms.
2. What can you tell us about the partnership between Wittrock and Q8Oils?
There has been a direct brand partnership between Alfons Wittrock Öl GmbH and Q8Oils since 2011. But we were purchasing Q8 products from another dealer even before 2011, so the contact with Q8Oils had already existed for quite some time, as there are many biogas plants in our region.
Q8Oils was already extraordinarily strong in the biogas sector at that time, drawing our attention to them through this field. Since Q8Oils offers a wide range of lubricant products, the order quantity has increased significantly and since we wanted to build another strong brand in our portfolio, we decided to enter into a brand partnership in 2011. We’re glad to have travelled this path together with Q8Oils in the past decade.
3. What are the three most important reasons to have Q8Oils as a partner, compared to other players in the market?
Q8Oils offers us a very broad and in-depth product range in the mineral oil sector. The technical support from Q8Oils is excellent and we can influence the product range and marketing activities as a Q8Oils brand partner. If you need a product for one specific use, Q8Oils will develop a product for that area of application. As a brand partner, you are actively involved with Q8Oils. Q8Oils also supports our marketing efforts.
“The technical support from Q8Oils is excellent and we can influence the product range and marketing activities as a Q8Oils brand partner.”
4. Which milestones in our partnership do you remember?
We have fond memories of the multi-day training event in Antwerp and the dealers’ conferences.
5. What does Wittrock’s future look like? What strategy or plans do you have lined up?
As an oil dealer, we are constantly confronted with the changing demands of the market, including in the lubricants field. We are challenged to open up to alternative fuels, as increasingly more car manufacturers and politicians are emphasizing that the classic combustion engine will not have a future in the long run.
For this reason, we are currently focusing intensively on the topics of LNG/Bio-LNG, hydrogen, electromobility, and synthetic fuels, including in the planning of our new rest stop in Rhede on the A31, and beyond. As a shareholder and founding member of the Tankstellen-Netz-Deutschland (TND), we already offer over 30 LNG fuel stations in the network.
Of course, we would like to continue to work more intensively with Q8Oils in the future in order to purchase fewer products from other suppliers. We would like to thank Q8Oils for the good cooperation and hope that we will continue to collaborate so well in the lubricants sector for the next 10 years.
