Tiger Trailers has designed and built the bodies for 57 new rigid trucks for Hovis, taking the number of Tiger-built assets in the customer’s fleet to 87 rigids and 14 double deck trailers.
The new trucks – 27 7.5-tonne Mitsubishi Canter Duonics and 30 12-tonne DAF LFs – were supplied by TOM Vehicle Rental to replace older vehicles in the fleet, with key specification changes at 7.5- tonnes.
Hovis produces 1.3 million loaves a day for delivery across the UK, relying on the efficiency of its delivery fleet to meet that demand. To further increase this efficiency, Tiger designed the new bodies to be as lightweight as possible in order to maximise payload capacity – for the 7.5- tonne vehicles, it was able to return a payload of 3,200kg, which is exceptional for a truck of this size.
Tony Stuart, Head of Logistics Operations Support at Hovis, explains: “Getting maximum payload from these vehicles was vitally important to us. Tiger has worked hard to find ways of giving us that extra capacity; this enables us to carry more loaves per vehicle and make fewer journeys – which brings both operational and environmental benefits.”
As part of the weight-saving design, the bodies were built with aluminium bearers and chassis runners, with the panels constructed from an ultralightweight honeycomb composite that also boasts superb strength and durability.
Tiger’s bespoke approach puts its customer’s requests at the forefront of the design process. For Hovis, this included the addition of treadplate floors to facilitate easier loading and unloading of bread baskets, as well as Aztec weighing equipment over the rear axle to ensure the maximum payload is never exceeded.
The Mitsubishi and DAF chassis have been supplied by TOM Vehicle Rental as part of a fixed rental agreement. After positive reviews from Hovis relating to the Tiger-built double deck trailers operating in its fleet, the vehicle rental company was more than happy to go on the bakery’s recommendation for Tiger to manufacture the bodies for its new rigids.
Glenn Murphy, National Account Manager at TOM Vehicle Rental, says: “We took a trip to Tiger’s Winsford facility and were really impressed. Tiger’s engineering team were very approachable and worked with us throughout to ensure that we were able to add value as a supplier, delivering the right vehicle specification for Hovis’ needs.”
The new rigids will be in operation across the UK, making store deliveries six days a week. As one of the UK’s most recognisable brands, Hovis employees close to 3,200 people across eight bakeries, four flour mills and three distribution centres.
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