Maxol Group boosts its profit as it seeks to diversify offerings

The forecourt operator is making moves into subscription car washes and home food delivery

Chief executive of the Maxol Group Brian Donaldson said 'slightly over 40%' of the company’s gross profitability now comes from non-fuel sales.

Forecourt operator Maxol Group has reported an increase in its revenue and profit during 2024 as the company makes moves into subscription car washes and home food delivery.

According to the company’s full-trading results for 2024, it generated turnover of €786m — an increase of 4% compared to 2023 — and profit before tax and exceptional items of €33.3m — up from €31.2m.

Food

As part of the company’s moves to diversify, it has announced that it is launching a meal delivery service early next year. It will be trialing the service initially at three locations in Donabate and on the Longmile Road in Dublin as well as Ardbrae in Wicklow.

Maxol Group chief executive Brian Donaldson said “slightly over 40%” of the company’s gross profitability now comes from non-fuel sales.

As part of this move, it has signed an exclusive 18-month deal with restaurant platform Noahs which will help develop meals that can be ordered online alongside some of the company’s other grocery lines.

Noahs will advise the forecourt operator on menus as well as assist in the design of kitchens and provide comprehensive operating systems.

"What we're looking at is pizza. We're looking at Mexican [food], we're looking at salad bowls, we're looking at a range of chicken burgers. We're looking at a range of Irish beef burgers, all of the stuff that we think will sell and resonate with a certain demographic,” Mr Donaldson.

"The idea is, those that want home delivery, they just don't want food, they maybe want other everyday essentials or whatever we can provide.” 

He added that the whole thing will come down to doing “deals with the aggregators in terms of how we get those products to the home as quickly as we can, particularly if it's freshly prepared hot food”.

Car wash

In order to bolster its growing car wash segment, Maxol said it is looking to launch a car wash subscription model during the first quarter of 2026 giving customers unlimited access for a simple monthly fee.

The company said that it expects to wash around 784,000 cars this year. 

"What we're trying to do there is to make sure that we set the offer and the value correctly, and that the experience is good for the customer,” Mr Donaldson said.

Electric vehicles

On its investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure, Mr Donaldson said they’ve “taken our foot off the accelerator, but we haven't paused it”.

“We're focusing on the locations where we think there'll be highest demand first, and it's taking us longer to get those locations open. 

"They're the ones where the grid capacity needs to be invested in,” he said, adding that the slowdown in electric car adoption is impacting the pace at which it will develop this infrastructure.

"We still believe that customers will move to electrification, but that transition to electrification is going to be longer and is going to take more time,” he said. 

There are 247 Maxol sites across the island of Ireland of which the company owns 125 directly — 92 in the Republic of Ireland and 33 in Northern Ireland. All of these are franchisee operators.

The remaining 122 are supplied under the Maxol brand and operate as independent dealer-owned sites. The company employs 85 people directly.

Mr Donaldson said the company has invested €70.5m into the company over the 2023 and 2024 periods and an additional €47.5m in capital expenditure is expected this year.