I have long wondered at the relatively high proportion of IRN BRU awnings which adorn the corner shops and newsagentsof Walthamstow. You would think that such an iconic Scottish soft drink would find itself trailing far behind some English beverage on the shop-fronts, or a least the likes of Pepsi and Coke in a place like Walthastow. Oddly enough, that is not necessarily the case, something which first puzzled me when writing about shops such as Collins Stores in Palmerston Road, and Hitesh Store on Pretoria Avenue. There are other places dotted about the place with the striking blue signage.
I have finally bothered to find the answer to his vaguely nerdish question. It turns out that Irn Bru, or their parent company AG Barr, actually have a distribution centre locally, at 1 Pristley Way on the Forrest Trading Estate (Tel 0208 527 7660).
Their trucks can also be seen from time to time on their rounds. An interesting feature of this is that the firm is using one of the world's largest electric trucks for their deliveries from Walthamstow, a 10 tonne Smith Newton. It costs next to nothing to run (under 3p a kilometer, which is a tad over a groat per mile). Apparently it runs on lithium-ion batteries which take up to 8 hours to recharge, but it can get up to 50 mph and has a range of up to 100 miles per charge.