16 Oct Case Study: Creed Foodservice

Family-owned wholesaler Creed Foodservice, currently celebrating its 45th anniversary, enjoys a well-deserved reputation for innovation within its product range. The company is just as open to fresh ideas when it comes to its distribution operation.

The wholesaler has slashed CO2 emissions by more than 300 tonnes per year after turning to Gray & Adams for its first twin-deck semi-trailer. The order represented another significant step forward in its relatively new relationship with Gray & Adams.

We only began doing business together in 2015, but since then we have supplied Creed with a clutch of single-deck, 13.6m semi-trailers, as well as insulated and refrigerated bodywork for a number of 18-tonne rigid vehicles.

The customer problem:

Creed Foodservice was previously sending two articulated tractors units, each pulling a single-deck trailer, down to High Wycombe from Derbyshire five nights a week. This obviously had a significant environmental impact, not to mention internal logistics and resource costs.

The brief to us was therefore to design a trailer with the same carrying capacity as the two articulated trailers to enable Creed Foodservice to deliver the same amount of product but slash their carbon emissions at the same time and work as efficiently as possible.

Our innovation:

Creed’s new lifting-deck trailer featured a sloping roof and Gray & Adams’ latest, aerodynamically profiled panel cappings, both of which contribute to fuel efficiency. It is equipped with a Carrier Vector 1950 multi-temperature refrigeration system.

Thanks to a series of clever design features, the trailer offers a market-leading 44-pallet carrying capacity. However, as Creed is using the latest addition to its growing fleet to transport product in cages – it can accommodate 36 on each deck, as well as a further 15 in the neck.

What our customer says:

“We carried out some extensive research before placing our latest order, and this confirmed that Gray & Adams is by far the market-leader when it comes to double-deck semi-trailers. This new trailer has therefore enabled us significantly to improve our environmental profile through the very substantial reductions we’re achieving in CO2 and other emissions.

“We have been very impressed not only with the quality and reliability of Gray & Adams’ equipment, but also with its customer-focused service. The manufacturer provided us initially with a lifting-deck trailer for trial, so we could make sure it was going to suit our operation. It has also delivered a programme of training for our operational personnel which was exceptionally well received.”

– Richard Frost, Operations Controller, Creed Foodservice