18 Oct Navigating new legislation in partnership with MRCT
MRCT has been in operation since 1969 and is a family-owned company that describes itself as being deeply committed to its customers and staff. The business delivers a wide range of chilled and frozen food products and operates from their HQ in Suffolk as well as five other depots in strategic locations in England.
Operating a fleet of Gray & Adams built single deck, single temp trailers, along with a far lesser number of trailers from other manufacturers, Gray & Adams was keen to support our valued, long-term customer with their ongoing requirements.
Customer Requirement
As a forward-thinking company, MRCT took part in the trial of operating longer length semi-trailers as soon as it was announced because they could see the environmental and economic benefits that it could bring to both the company and its customer. MRCT found that LST’s carrying 28 pallets to distribute their goods allowed for the best volume to weight balance as well as reducing journey numbers which would ultimately create a positive impact on the reduction of CO2 emissions from the business.
Anticipating the end of the 12-year trial, MRCT approached Gray & Adams to build a further eight 14.6m single deck, single temperature trailers, fitted with Carrier refrigeration units, to be incorporated into the fleet as part of their general replacement programme.
David Brown, Managing Director of MRCT said,
“I re-joined MRCT in 2007 after 10 years at other companies within the industry, I first fostered a good working relationship with Gray & Adams in 1998 and have always found them to be very professional to deal with, their customer service is superb, and the quality of the finished trailers are always excellent. For this reason, we continue to work with G&A and they have recently supplied us with eight 14.6m trailers following a UK wide trial of LSTs.
From MRCT’s perspective and through analysing our own data, we found the 14.6m trailers to be no more challenging, and just as safe to operate as a standard 13.6m trailers, and we could see the cost and environmental benefits it would bring to the business. We were disappointed to see that when the findings of the DfT’s consultation was released it recommends additional regulatory controls. My opinion, from an operator’s perspective is that differences between the operation of 14.6m to a 15.66m trailers should be looked into again and given additional consideration.”