Continue reading »]]> London, UK: The Top 25 operator listing, produced by Cold Chain News (May 2013) and exclusive to the title, shows the biggest five temperature-controlled transport and logistics providers .growing turnover. Fowler Welch is the star performer this year in turnover terms moving from fifth place last year to fourth this year with a 12% year-on-year turnover increase.

A new entry this year taking the number two slot, is Turners Distribution. It acquired Browns Distribution last year expanding its customer base in Lincolnshire. Browns operates 100 vehicles and has a temperature-controlled warehouse and packhouse.

“We are optimistic about the future although we anticipate tough economic conditions for the foreseeable future,” says Paul Day, managing director of Turners Distribution.

Outside the top five operators performance was more muted reflecting the almost unanimous view from operators that trading conditions are the most difficult any has experienced.

“The past year has been tough for all transport companies, but new business and reduced empty running has enabled us to remain both competitive and profitable. Looking ahead to 2013/2014 we will continue with this strategy and look to improve our already high service levels,” says Mike McLuskey, managing director of Ocean Trailers.
• The full survey is availble as a free download on this site

Continue reading »]]> Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, UK: Reed Boardall has been named ‘Fresh and Frozen Foods Haulier of the Year’ by Tesco supermarket.

The awards are designed to recognise outstanding performance by the company’s suppliers and service providers.

Reed Boardall operates a single-site, 142,000 pallet, cold storage operation with 160 refrigerated trucks.  The award citation praised Reed Boardall for service and singled out the company’s use of high-capacity, double-deck trailers. Reed Boardall has 230 refrigerated trailers,  40 of which have double-decks with lifting upper floors

Will Langham, primary manager, fresh and frozen foods, Tesco, says: “These awards recognise suppliers and service providers who show themselves to be constantly striving to give Tesco and our customers the best possible service.

One of Reed Boardall’s pioneering two-level reefers

“Reed Boardall’s team has done that and has also been proactive in extending the use of highly-efficient double-deck trailers into our frozen food distribution centres. We congratulate them.”

Reed Boardall pioneered the use of refrigerated double-deck trailers almost 20 years ago and has the largest fleet in the UK. The trailers allow 53% more product per load than in a standard refrigerated trailer.

Tom Cassells, managing director, Reed Boardall Transport says: “It is great to receive this accolade from Tesco because our two most important goals are giving outstanding service to our customers and minimising our environmental impact.

“We aim to tick all the right boxes to help our food manufacturing customers, as well as their customers – supermarkets like Tesco – achieve their own service and corporate responsibility goals. This award shows we are getting it right consistently and we’re very proud of that.”

Continue reading »]]> Dorking, Surrey: Paragon Software Systems is celebrating a 30-year relationship involving the supply of transport software to Morrisons and previously to Safeway, Presto and Liptons.

Paragon’s software was used since the early 1980s to plan distribution for Presto and Liptons supermarkets (later rebranded as Safeway) and then retained by Morrisons after its acquisition of Safeway in 2004. With Paragon’s support, the company continues to evolve the system to keep in step with its transport requirements, enabling it to maintain the highest possible levels of delivery service to its growing network of stores.

As Morrisons replaced its legacy business software with Oracle systems following major IT overhauling projects, Paragon remained the retailer’s standard solution for optimising movements of ambient, chilled and frozen goods from its distribution centres to more than 400 stores across the UK.

Today, Morrisons uses the software to plan daily movements of its 600 vehicles supported by contractors delivering to its UK store network. The solution integrates planning optimisation, driver resource availability and telematics to enhance the efficiency and execution of each day’s complex transport plans. As a result, Morrisons benefits from reductions in road miles, fuel used and spot hire vehicle costs.

Morrisons’ order management system sends daily order volume information to Paragon, which then updates the day’s fixed route plan. Morrisons also uses the software strategically to model new routes to meet new and seasonal order demands. It can use the software to plan delivery routes for new stores and for assisting the procurement of new vehicles – the software shows what the company can achieve using existing vehicles and helps with deciding how many others are needed to meet future demands.

“Paragon’s routing software is integral to our distribution planning operation, whether it’s for daily dynamic scheduling or strategic analysis,” says Dave Russell, national planning manager at Wm Morrisons Supermarkets. “Paragon’s partnership approach to software implementation and development has enabled us to future proof our planning processes within our business.”

Continue reading »]]> London, UK: Pluscrates has a new crate repair service to support the increasing use of returnable transit packaging by retailers and supermarkets.

The company estimates that a 100,000 crates, or totes are scrapped due to damage every year. “The new service will be popular with customers keen to reduce waste and protect their bottom line,” Pluscrates says.

John Mitchel, managing director, Pluscrates says: “We’ve been recycling the plastic raw material in our own broken totes for many years, but more recently we decided to introduce a ‘speed welding’ technique to repair damaged totes and return them into service. It proved very successful, so it was a logical step to begin offering the same repair service to our clients in the retail sector.”

With speed welding, a plastic welder similar to a soldering iron in appearance and wattage, is fitted with a feed tube for the plastic weld rod. The speed tip heats the rod and the substrate and at the same time presses the molten welding rod into position.  A bead of softened plastic is laid into the joint fusing the parts together.

With some types of plastic, such as polypropylene, the melted welding rod must be mixed with the semi-melted base material being fabricated or repaired. Pluscrates uses a speed tip ‘gun’ which is essentially a soldering iron with a broad flat tip that can be used to melt the weld joint and filler materiel to create a secure bond.

The repair service includes collection of damaged totes from the customer’s premises and their return. Any totes that cannot be economically repaired are responsibly recycled, so nothing is wasted.  On average the cost of repairing and recycling equates to around half that of purchasing new stock, thereby reducing overheads and the impact on the environment.

Continue reading »]]> London, UK:  Pressure is rising on pricing in the logistics industry no matter the country, according to Simon-Kucher’s Global Pricing Study.

Price pressure is higher in the logistics industry than in other sectors and oOnly a strong positioning and committed leadership can help companies in Europe, Asia, the Americas and the rest of the world to counter the pressure, the study says.

Customers continue to demand discounts and over-capacities in several sectors drive prices down. What’s more, almost two-thirds of the responding transportation and logistics firms from a wide variety of countries are in the midst of a price war, the study reveals.

Three-fourths of logistics companies are unable to get the prices they deserve for their services. The causes, managers say, are the price-aggressive competitive environment and the prevalence of standardized products. These were the findings of the Global Pricing Study 2012* with 151 respondents from the transportation and logistics sectors throughout Europe, Asia, Northern and Southern America.

The study, conducted by the global strategy and marketing consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners, also reveals that logistics companies are often the source of their own misery. After all, successful companies, regardless of industry, have “pricing power” – the ability to charge prices that reflect the value of their products and services. Still, its importance in the logistics sector, where margins are considerably lower compared to other sectors, should not be underestimated.

Logistics companies with strong pricing power achieve on average 17% higher margins than their competitors. “A strong market positioning and selling premium products greatly improve a company’s pricing power – which also guarantees international business success,” says Dr Philipp Biermann, Partner at the global strategy consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners.

The study also shows that the transportation and logistics sector underperforms when it comes to implementing price increases in the market. Over two-thirds of the respondents failed to implement more than 60% of their planned price increases. Compared to the cross-industry average, price implementation in the logistics sector was lower. “When so many logistics firms are failing so often to implement prices, it means that their price increases are just in theory, and not for practice,” says Biermann.

There are, however, companies that have managed to push through up to 100 percent of their planned price increases. One thing is clear here: Pricing power is not an industry-specific phenomenon; every company can achieve it – with the right management guidance. Yet when it comes to price implementation, the entire team must be involved. The sales team in particular must fulfill strict guidelines; otherwise, sellers will try to drive prices down to achieve higher volumes.

*About the Global Pricing Study 2012
2,700 decision-makers and managers from companies in all major industry and service sectors took part in the Global Pricing Study 2012. The study was conducted in Europe, Asia, North America and South America. It contained questions on pricing organization, pricing power, inflation management, profit orientation and profit expectations. Simon-Kucher’s cooperation partners for the study were the Professional Pricing Society (US) and the IE Business School (Spain).

Continue reading »]]> Gdansk, Poland: Easyfresh Poland and Sealogistics are heading a project to build a coldstore in the port of Gdansk.
Easyfresh, helped by Dr Tomasz Kubicki, head of Sealogistics, aim to set up a coldstore or refrigerated warehouse for fresh and frozen cargo flows.

Easyfresh says that Gdansk is a key port within the Baltic area, with a superb future. Within the port area, DCT (Deepwater Container Terminal Gdansk) has the capability and potential for expansion and it is ideally positioned to serve the perishables trades, says Easyfresh.

“Given the above, it is a fact, that a supportive facility (coldstore or refrigerated warehouse) would be very much appreciated by shippers and receivers of fresh and frozen cargoes, using or willing to use, DCT/Gdansk,” says Easyfresh.

Continue reading »]]> Letchworth, Hertfordshire, UK: IMC Group has added to its ShockWatch range of self-adhesive indicators that fix directly to goods during transit to show exposure to unacceptable temperatures.

Temperature sensitive goods can be monitored by three new products: WarmMark2, ColdMark2 and Cold Chain Complete. These provides users with a clearly visible indication of temperature breach, while the ShockWatch2 range of impact indicators respond to bi-directional impact designed for a multitude of impact sensitive equipment during shipping and handling.

The new products extend ShockWatch to cover a wider range of transported goods of varying sizes and weights assisting users in reducing costs and assigning accountability for incidents when damage does occur during transit.

The IMC Group, which represents US-based ShockWatch in the UK, believes the products offer a highly accessible and low-cost solution to the issues around the handling of goods in transit.

Ian Robinson, managing director, IMC Group, says: “Incidents of damage in transit, whether due to sudden impact or exposure to unacceptably high or low temperatures, are a real headache for operators in the logistics sector.

“The ShockWatch range provides cost-effective solutions to these issues in two important ways – deterring improper handling by their very presence on packages and helping to confirm culpability when damage does occur. These latest additions to the range provide even greater scrutiny, but in a very affordable and fast-acting format.”

Continue reading »]]> Minneapolis, Minnesota, US: Thermo King celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. It’s a great history but we bring you the company’s thoughts on its new products. Karin De Bondt, regional director for Thermo King for the UK and Ireland shows the way ahead

In 1938 the transport refrigeration business was still in the ice age, literally. Ice and salt was then the only practical way for hauliers to keep perishable shipments from spoiling. Visionary Joe Numero commissioned Fred Jones to develop technology to keep perishable produce from spoiling during transport. Jones responded about 30 days later with the first successful mechanical transport refrigeration unit and a whole new industry was born.

1939: Inside an early truck mounted refrigeration unit

Almost everything about the transport refrigeration industry has changed in the last 75 years – except its mission. Now, as then, refrigerated hauliers and refrigeration unit manufacturers, dealers and service providers are dedicated to moving temperature-sensitive shipments by truck, trailer, ship or rail from A to B safely, reliably and economically.
Innovative technologies and smart operating practices enable operators to achieve best-in-class performance with their refrigeration equipment. The Thermo King SLX trailer refrigeration unit has set new standards for fuel efficiency since its introduction in 2008. The new SLXe series, launched in 2012, raised the bar even higher. Rigorous head-to-head testing by Thermo

1940: Fred Jones who built the first successful mechanical transport refrigeration unit

King demonstrates that the SLXe series are around 20% more fuel-efficient than other models in its segment. This improvement was enabled by the introduction of innovative control technology to maximise performance and minimise consumption.

With traffic noise being the second biggest environmental threat to health in the European Union Thermo King has invested heavily in research and development to meet and exceed low noise targets without compromising unit performance and reliability.  Operators can now select quiet Whisper variants of refrigeration units in both truck and trailer ranges. For those requiring almost silent operation, there are units which are certified to meet and exceed the rigorous standards set by PIEK, for example the CryoTech range.

Innovations to come

c1950: The start of an industry with an under-mount fridge

Industry leaders like Thermo King are applying current and emerging technologies and practices to help their customers meet challenges and achieve higher levels of performance with lower total cost of ownership. These are some thoughts on what the future may hold:

• Fuel economy will be a big driver of innovation. Fuel is the largest component of total operating costs for most refrigerated fleet operators and fuel prices represent one of their least controllable expenses.

• Sustainability will be a watchword for some time to come. Operators will willingly adopt environmentally friendly products and practices if they make economic sense.

2013: SLXe provides cutting-edge technology to lower operating costs and maximise load protection

• Highly efficient diesel engines will continue to power most refrigeration units on trucks but other engine concepts and alternative fuels will be an option, such as hybrid-electric engines, all-electric and natural gas engines. Thermo King has pioneered the almost silent, zero emissions use of liquid carbon dioxide in its CryoTech trailer and truck range.

• Advances in prognostic capabilities will enable continuous improvement in refrigeration unit reliability. Predictive software and embedded sensors will detect issues before they become problems and monitor mission-critical components to maximise service life.

• Linkage between manufacturers and their dealer networks will become stronger as both parties work to ensure they are providing the best possible service to refrigerated fleet operators.

2013: CryoTech CO2 refrigeration is the start of diesel alternatives

• Food safety and freshness have become priorities, driven by government regulation and consumer pressure. Advanced refrigeration systems include the capability to track, record and transmit data that can help fleet operators establish the location of a particular load at a particular time, as well as document conditions inside the refrigerated container, truck or trailer.

• Globalisation of the food supply will lead to the increasing use of intermodal transport for temperature-sensitive loads.

• Whatever the load global positioning system data and advanced wireless communications technologies provide operators with real-time and historical information about load temperature and asset location.

• The new generation of drivers and other employees expect to be able to interact with refrigeration systems using smart devices, which changes the way designers think about user interfaces.

• Intelligent solutions and advanced analytics give refrigerated fleet operators the opportunity to squeeze even more fuel economy from their refrigeration units. For example, fleet operators and their customers can work together using advanced analytics to determine the optimal set-point and control parameters for a particular load. Raising the set-point by a single degree can yield as much as a 2% improvement in fuel efficiency, according to Thermo King analysis.

Thermo King is a brand of Ingersoll Rand and a leading provider of transport temperature control systems for mobile applications.

Continue reading »]]> Bridgwater, Somerset: Langdon Industries has been awarded certification to the internationally recognised ISO9001 Standard in Quality Management Systems. This means that all major branches of the Nagel-Group are similarly certified by independent external bodies.

The company had previously decided to use the ISO Standard as a guide to the improvement of its management systems, as well as allowing consistency with the wider Nagel-Group in continental Europe. Continuous improvement in processes and procedures in order to increase customer satisfaction is the underlying theme of this standard. The company’s management recognises where improvements remain to be made and various initiatives are underway in order to ensure that this progress continues.

“Certification at this time is welcome recognition of the significant steps achieved so far and of the plans in place for the future,” says the company.

Continue reading »]]> Girona, Spain: Express Group has recently established a collaboration with Spanish transport and logistics company Transportes Tresserras, with the aim of establishing a stronger and more reliable supply chain of chilled and frozen food products from Spain to Malta.

“We have been seeing a growing number of requests from our customers for collection of food products from Spain over the past months. In order to satisfy this demand in a reliable way, we chose to partner with an established logistics and transport company who could offer us the reliability that we were after,” Johann Vella, general manager of Express Group, says.