ENVIRONMENT

Given that almost 30,000 tonnes of refrigerator products are transported annually from the production plants of the  FrieslandCampina in Central Europe to Greece, supply chain set the objective to use the best combination of alternative sustainable mode of transport for the products vs the  traditional road transport, that would fulfill  the objective of "Climate Action". In this context, a pilot transfer with a  combination of various means was decided, e.g.  train from the Netherlands to Italy, sea transport from Italy to the port of Patras and road transport from Patras to the Distribution Center of our company in Aspropyrgos. Complexity and need for dedicated management was foreseen and thus trained employees were assigned.  As the pilot application was  a complete success, this combined mode of transport has now been established for at least 50%-60% of refrigerator product imports (58% actual 2020, 55% actual 2019 & 58% actual 2018). Taking into account the transport of shelf products,  the volume transported in more environmentally friendly and sustainable  reachs appr 80% of the annual total volume transported (82% actual 2020, 78% actual 2019 & 80% actual 2018).

Specifically, refrigerated trucks are being loaded on weekly basis, as from Wednesday till Friday morning, from the loading locations in Holland & Belgium. The trucks are sent to Frankfurt Germany, where the cool chambers are being loaded on the block train that departs every Friday evening. Currently there is one block train departure per week, departing from Frankfurt with final destination Venice Italy. Two days later the train arrives in the port of Venice; the units are being dropped off and a subcontractor is employed so as to load the units in the vessel that departs the same evening. The vessel arrives in the port of Patra’s, a day later (Monday afternoon) and the chambers are trucked to Aspropyrgos warehouse, available for unloading as from Tuesday, early in the morning.   
During the journey, the temperature within the chambers is being monitored to reassure that FCH’s transportation standards are maintained. A satellite monitoring system (GPS tracking system) sends alarms in case there is a temperature violation (temperature rises above the expected limits). In such cases, there are appointed locations during the train journey, where service can be provided.
The total lead time of the intermodal way of transportation is 5-6 days, 1-2 days extra in comparison to the conventional road transportation. Conventional road transportation consists of normal refrigerated trucks that are being loaded from the loading locations in Holland & Belgium and they travel by road to Hellas (through central Europe to the Italian ports of Ankona or Venice and then via vessel to Patra Greece).