Frozen warehousing specialists Partner Logistics have teamed up with Birds Eye and DHL to take part in a new project which uses double-deck trailers to transport pallets of frozen goods from the warehouse to the distribution centre.
Double deck trailers, which significantly maximise load capacity, hold almost 50% more pallets than a conventional truck and have been proven to improve the efficiency of the supply chain as well as reduce road miles and carbon emissions.
The trial period for the project, which ran for 10 weeks, was based on the 80 mile journey between the Partner Logistics cold store in Wisbech and a customer retail distribution centre in Daventry and has so far taken a total of an equivalent 43 trucks off the road, saving over 4,500kg of CO2 emissions.
Graham Watling, Distribution Manager UK at Birds Eye, said: “Double deck trailers allow us to look at the best possible opportunities to improve the efficiency of our deliveries for our customers, whilst reducing our road miles. In our best week so far we have been able to take the equivalent of eight trucks off the road, saving over 300 litres of diesel.
These savings are a step in the right direction when it comes to achieving our goal of reducing carbon emissions by 15% by 2020 and we couldn’t have done this without the help of Partner Logistics, DHL and our end customers.”
Eelco Schnabel, Commercial Director at Partner Logistics, said: “We are very pleased to have worked with Birds Eye and DHL on this energy saving project. All of our European warehouses have been built with a focus on sustainability and we proactively try to reduce carbon emissions in any way we can.”
Birds Eye has estimated that nowthe double deck trailers are running regularly on this route they will see a reduction of 2% in their annual total road miles. Plans to extend the project to include further routes are underway.
Birds Eye selected the Partner Logistics warehouse in Wisbech in 2010 for the UK storage of all their frozen food products. The site is the UK’s largest cold store, covering an area the size of two football pitches with a capacity of 77,000 pallets.
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