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Nestlé and Mars are trialling a system of working together to reduce the environmental impact of their deliveries of Christmas confectionery to Tesco.
They are sharing trucks to deliver combined loads of chocolates including Mars’ Celebrations and Nestlé’s Quality Street. The trial has been running for 11 weeks and has so far resulted in over 60 loads being combined, removing some 7,500 miles of duplicate truck journeys.
Working with Tesco, the two manufactures have been able to synchronise their deliveries to each of the three regional distribution centres so that any part load orders that either company receive, can be combined into one truck load. The Nestlé and Mars customer service and logistics teams then work together to plan a single vehicle to collect from each company’s distribution centres before delivering the combined orders to Tesco.
For deliveries to Southampton and Medway, the trucks start at Nestlé’s distribution centres at Bardon near Leicester, going on to collect the remainder of their load from the Mars distribution centre at Desborough. For Belfast loads, the truck collects from Bardon before moving on to Mars at Melton Mowbray to pick up the rest of the load.
Richard Hastings, Nestlé’s head of planning & delivery said: “We have reduced the packaging across our entire Christmas confectionery range and the partnership with Mars now allows us to reduce the environmental impact of our Christmas confectionery deliveries to Tesco.”
Heather Simpson, Mars UK’s customer logistics manager said: “This is another milestone proving how food manufacturers can conduct business in a more environmentally friendly and efficient way.”
This collaboration has come about through the companies’ involvement in sustainability initiatives championed by ECR UK and supported by the Institute of Grocery Distribution. These initiatives have so far been responsible for removing some 53 million miles of food transport from the UK’s roads.
