Food supplier Moy Park orders 50 IVECO natural gas trucks

Food supplier Moy Park in Northern Ireland has committed to decarbonise its transport by taking on 50 Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) IVECO trucks, which makes it IVECO UK’s largest single order of gas trucks.

Supplied by South West Truck & Van in Avonmouth, the 50 IVECO LNG Stralis NP 460 tractors will run out of the company’s Sleaford and Ashbourne facilities. These are to run on 100% Bio-LNG sourced through anaerobic digestion, with Roadgas commissioning an on-site refuelling station and providing an extensive training course to those involved in its operation.

The creation of gas fuels through anaerobic digestion means that Moy Park can take advantage of ultimate emissions reductions, negating waste output by collecting the gases given off for vehicle fuel while solids can be used as fertiliser for farms, locking carbon into earth and away from the atmosphere. – This is known as the ‘circular economy’, a methodology IVECO believes will open the door to negative greenhouse gases in vehicular transport. Moy Park has maintained a zero waste to landfill policy since 2015.

The new biogas trucks, run via a 5-year IVECO Capital ops lease are expected to cover around 160,000kms a year each, which Moy Park estimates will offset around an impressive 5,600 tonnes of CO2 annually. Running day and night to maximise efficiency, all vehicles will return to base for refuelling and have been specified with a tank capacity giving a range of around 400 miles.

While natural gas can deliver an uplift in fuel efficiency over its diesel counterpart, it also reduces CO2 emissions by up to 95% when operating on biomethane fuels. IVECO natural gas trucks are also capable of running at just 71dB, circumventing noise pollution restrictions to make an ideal partner for the urban leg of any mission or night-time deliveries. The Natural Power Stralis will operate on a mixture of routes, delivering food products to regional delivery hubs and directly into a variety of supermarkets.

“Moy Park’s in-house trials have demonstrated that vehicles running on biomethane reduced CO2 emissions by more than 80%. Following these extensive trials of alternative fuels and vehicle providers, we are investing in 50 liquefied natural gas (LNG) HGV trucks from IVECO”, commented Hugh Nicholson, Moy Park’s Director of Logistics.

“This is a huge step forward in transitioning our own entire core fleet of 120 tractor units to gas by 2023, and we also plan to work with our third-party logistics partners in their CO2 reduction programmes as part of our overall Net Zero Carbon strategy.

“So much transport is on the roads by necessity, therefore road haulage is a key opportunity for us to reduce carbon emissions. Our transport team have been driving carbon reduction initiatives for a number of years, for example through increasing use of hi-capacity trailers. This delivery of LNG tractor units is a further step towards Net Zero of our logistics operations. Caring for the environment is embedded in our ethos and the logistics strategy feeds into our wider business sustainability commitments.”