Leading pallet and container pooling specialist Chep has boosted its share of the fresh produce logistics sector, through both the acquisition of new contracts and increased business with leading UK salad, fruit and vegetable suppliers such as G’s Marketing, Natures Way, Staples Vegetables and Hammond’s.
The G’s Marketing contract extension, worth a total of €2.4m, will see fresh produce from the group’s farms in both the UK and Spain stacked on Chep pallets, while empty pallets are returned on the weekly Stobart Rail service, as well as by road from the UK to Spain.
By loading the pallets onto trains, G’s Marketing achieves a major reduction in carbon emissions, Chep notes.
'Moving Chep pallets to Spain has proved a very smooth operation with minor problems on just two occasions,' explains Scott Linney, tray & pallet control manager at G’s Marketing. 'We are particularly pleased to have reduced carbon emissions significantly at no extra cost to the business.
'I have been delighted with the result and we may well increase the frequency from next October,” Mr Linney adds.
Natures Way Foods (NWF) has used over 3m of Chep’s reusable plastics containers (RPCs) this year, including merchandising trays, as part of the €1.7m contract signed by the group, with these and Chep’s pallets used as part Natures Way’s business with UK retailer Morrisons.
Natures Way is a leading provider of bagged salads to Morrisons, Tesco and leading food service providers such as McDonald’s, Pret a Manger and the Gondola Group, as well as prepared fruit to both Morrisons and Pret. It is the Morrisons business that has seen the most significant growth over the past 12 months, with the retailer enjoying positive steps forward in revenue and customer footfall measures.
In servicing the Natures Way contract, the Chep pallet pool has had to handle sudden surges in demand such as the promotional and bumble bee strategy, implemented earlier in the year between NWF and Morrisons, which has subsequently driven up volumes. Chep is also working with Natures Way to increase sustainability in the supply chain by replacing existing cardboard containers with RPCs.
Another large Chep customer is Staple Vegetables, a major supplier of brassicas to UK multiples including Morrisons and Tesco, which has been a Chep customer for 13 years. Both pallets and over 2m RPCs are now used annually in the contract, Chep says, with the deal worth nearly €2.3m.
Chep can also count Hammond’s Produce Ltd, which uses up to 1,000 Chep pallets and 10,000 RPCs per week depending on seasonal demand, among its top customers.
The root crop and brassica supplier is making increased use of Chep’s products Portfolio+PLUS and Managed Recovery – the former being a web-based management tool enabling customers to trade with Chep on a permanent basis, managing accounts online, reporting transactions and ordering equipment as well as monitoring and requesting collections.
Hammond director John Hammond describes the product as a 'significant step forward and bringing increased benefits every month”, with the system designed to cut down on paperwork and enable customers to see their pallet pool status in real time.
Managed Recovery, meanwhile, is an enhancement to the pallet pooling exchange concept as it reduces total vehicle movements and therefore carbon footprint, with Chep collecting used pallets in full truckloads and returning them to Hammond’s suppliers.
The result is that the suppliers or hauliers that are continuing to deliver into Hammond’s no longer have to wait to receive the same number of empty pallets in exchange, rather notifying Chep of the delivery, with the corresponding number of pallets transferred off of their account.
This variety of service innovations offered by Chep, along with the new contracts already in place, mean that the future is looking bright for the group.
'These key contracts are further proof that we offer a competitive service whilst our RPCs are proving an excellent alternative to one-way packaging, specifically cardboard,' notes Mike Pooley, managing director of Chep UK & Ireland.
'They are durable yet light and also come in a display-ready option,' he adds. 'The lower folding height also means improved efficiencies in transport and storage. Our customers can now spend less time worrying about the management of pallets and containers and more time concentrating on their core business.'
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