Morrisons has been using a variety of refrigerated vehicles from Refrigerental, including car derived vans, 3.5 tonne panel vans, 7.5 tonne and 18 tonne rigid box trucks, as the national convenience store network expands at a rate of between two and six new stores each week
At the end of January 2014, Morrisons had 100 of its new M Local stores in operation and 12 months later the supermarket chain estimates that it will have doubled its convenience store footprint across the UK.
According to John Ward, head of engineering at Morrisons: ‘We were aware of the good reputation of Burnt Tree as a company, but we had never worked with them. So when they moved into refrigerated vehicle rental last year, it was absolutely perfect timing for us as this coincided with our need to source additional refrigerated vehicles.’
All the refrigerated vans and trucks in the Refrigerental fleet are brand-new models, covering vehicle sizes from small vans up to 26tonne rigids, and as Burnt Tree’s contract hire and Refrigerental director, Mark Howell, explained, ‘We have carefully chosen a comprehensive range of vehicle types and models to give customers, such as Morrisons, the optimum choice of vehicles covering the majority of temperature controlled applications from chill to heavy chill and deep frozen.
‘Morrisons is looking to expand across the whole of England, Scotland and Wales and this is where Burnt Tree’ s 21 strong branch network plays a significant role as they are ideally located geographically to fully service Morrisons refrigerated vehicle requirements,’ he added.