While many people keep their tea in a caddy, the Newcastle-based, family-run tea merchant Ringtons is now delivering its tea in a Caddy – thanks to an order for a fleet of 201 Volkswagen Caddy vans for its home delivery service.

The Volkswagen Caddy fleet will be making door to door deliveries to 270,000 Ringtons customers across the UK every two weeks, covering a total of around 2.5 million miles per annum. *Each Caddy will be black with a 2.0-litre 69 PS SDI engine and for maximum convenience for the drivers, will have parking sensors and twin sliding side doors.

Ringtons ordered the new Caddy fleet from the local Benfield Van Centre in Newcastle along with a fixed-price service and maintenance contract to keep the vehicles in top condition and serviced by fully trained Volkswagen technicians at selected Van Centres from the nationwide Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles’ network.

Carl Moffett, Finance Director of Ringtons said: ’There are three clear reasons why we chose the Volkswagen Caddy – reliability, competitive whole life costs and driver acceptance.* The last thing we or our customers need is a vehicle off the road, so we need a van that we can completely rely on.* Secondly, a competitive deal and stronger residual values made the Caddy a very cost effective choice, and our drivers have found the Caddy very comfortable and of high quality, so they are extra proud of the vans they drive.’

Chris Blue, National Fleet Manager for Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles said: ‘This large fleet deal clearly demonstrates the cost effectiveness and durability of Volkswagen vans.* We look forward to seeing the Ringtons tea Caddys on the road across the country.’

The Caddy is the smallest model in the Volkswagen van range, offering a load volume of 3.2 m³ and a payload of between 718 kg and 739 kg, with retail prices (excluding VAT) starting from £11,400.

Full details of the Caddy and the rest of the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles’ van range from are available from www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk or by calling 0800 717131.