Britain’s biggest retailer will expand its use of train services to bring goods from Spain into the country which helped it cut emissions and protect deliveries through a truck drivers’ shortage, its CEO told Reuters.
Ken Murphy said a chilled rail service was bringing fruit and vegetables into the country from Spain.
From 65,000 containers a year on rail, Tesco has an ambition to increase that to 90,000 containers by November or December.
“We’re one of the few if not the only grocery retailer in the UK that uses rail extensively,” he said. “That helped us during the HGV challenges we’ve had during the summer.
“To put it into context, by shipping 65,000 by rail, we save about 22 million road miles a year.”
Britain has been hit by an acute shortage of truck drivers this year, with some retailers and oil companies warning this month that they were struggling to maintain full services.
On top of that, many leading companies are either under pressure to cut emissions targets, or, like Tesco, have set out plans to do so.
