New forks pick up potato contract

At the Somerset site, new counterbalanced trucks are a mix of 3-4 tonne capacity, gas-powered models. One of the key factors behind Branston's decision to specify the Jungheinrich gas trucks was the fact that the engines – supplied by Volkswagen – are particularly fuel efficient. Thanks to their hydrostatic engine, the trucks are particularly suited to Branston since its operation involves a lot of 'shuttling' work -- loading and unloading lorries within and around the warehouse and factory environment. Each lorry arriving at the site contains up to 26 one-tonne boxes of potatoes. These are unloaded by the gas-powered counterbalance trucks and taken to either a chill store – where they are stored at a constant temperature of 2oC -- or direct to the packing facility. Powered pallet trucks transfer pallets in and around the chill and ambient stores and are used to load outgoing deliveries. High frequency charging has been used to reduce energy costs as well as reduce maintenance on battery topping. "We had operated a mixed fleet of trucks at our site before but most of the trucks were supplied by another manufacturer," says Branston's logistics manager James Beaven. "We made the decision to move over to a single supplier agreement with Jungheinrich to streamline operations. I'm delighted that we made the switch." The trucks have been supplied on a full contract hire package. Branston is Britain's leading supplier of fresh potatoes and other high quality prepared vegetable products. Half of all the potatoes sold by Tesco come from Branston. The company has three sites, in Lincoln, Somerset and Perth, Scotland. Its new prepared foods factory at the Lincoln site recently won a sustainability award from the the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in recognition of its environmentally efficient design.