Time to stop trucking around

Collaborative distribution could cut food miles in the highlands by more than 3.6M a year, supply chain directors predicted.

Companies like Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), Dairy Crest and the retailers Musgrave Budgens-Londis and Somerfield all had warehouses in the Glasgow area and were sending stock separately into northern Scotland - and in many cases, returning with empty trucks, said CCE's logistics director Peter Latham.

Speaking at the IGD supply chain summit in London last month, he added: "We're talking to third-party logistics providers about collecting stock from several retailers and manufacturers in Scotland and consolidating it in the Aberdeen area.

"Trucks coming back could be filled with stock from suppliers with factories in the north, such as Grampian. We've estimated that this could save more than 10,000 food miles a day."

Truck 'speed dating' events were being facilitated by the supply chain organisation ECR UK, which was helping manufacturers and retailers to identify ways to consolidate loads and address the geographic imbalance between supply and demand in far-flung places, like northern Scotland, said Latham.

He added: "The food industry accounts for 25% of all HGV kilometres in the UK. We have got to take vehicles off the road."

He admitted that such collaborative partnerships raised difficult commercial issues, such as renegotiating existing logistics contracts, deciding whose livery to use on trucks, managing different temperature regimes and dealing with different insurance arrangements. "There are some barriers to collaboration, but if we don't do something about our carbon footprint, the government will do it for us."

Meanwhile, attempts to improve collaboration between suppliers and retailers through online portals, such as Asda's Retail Link, were having mixed results, said Asda's supply chain director Andy Ellis.

"I'd say 30% of our suppliers are very good at working collaboratively, 40% are good and 30% are just awful."