Sustainability in Action: Fife Creamery

We’re helping solve our customers’ big challenges by innovating and delivering solutions that are better for their business - and for the environment.

Project At-a-Glance:

The opportunity: Help Fife Creamery (Scotland) improve the efficiency and sustainability of its operations by moving away from diesel-powered units.

The solution: Modernizing their fleet with 30 new vehicles featuring engineless, compressor-driven refrigeration systems and two additional inverter-powered systems for 18-ton vehicles.

Sustainability outcomes:

• Reduced fuel consumption of up to 200,000 liters a year
• Reduced emissions of 1,929 mtco2e
• Estimated savings of $427,280 per year

As one of Scotland’s leading chilled and frozen food wholesalers, Fife Creamery understands the importance of investing in partnerships and technologies that create a more sustainable cold chain. The company, which considers itself “Scotland's Original Chilled Food Service,” determined that replacing its diesel-powered units would be a critical step in improving the efficiency and sustainability of company-wide operations.

The benefits of diesel-free refrigeration

When looking for diesel-free refrigeration systems for two new drawbar trailer vehicles, Fife Creamery opted to partner with Thermo King®. The company needed a high-performance system capable of coping with a high-demand, multi-drop operations environment while also delivering fuel savings and emissions reduction.

Thermo King’s Frigoblock FK25RL unit, powered by an alternator and inverter system, proved to be the right solution for the 18-ton vehicles. The immediate success of the Frigoblock systems inspired Fife Creamery to turn to Thermo King’s high-power compressor-driven solutions for a secondary project: A new fleet of thirty 7.5-ton vehicles.

“Fife Creamery operates long-haul and intensive deliveries in busy urban centers such as Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen,” explains Fife Creamery logistics manager Richard Wishart. “Rising fuel costs and expanding low-emission urban zones across the country have put emission reduction, fuel efficiency and performance at the forefront of priorities when selecting new vehicles and refrigeration systems for our fleet.”

To meet the needs of the high-demand fleet, Fife Creamery opted to install Thermo King’s multi-temperate V-800 MAX Spectrum diesel-free refrigeration systems in each of the new vehicles. In addition to immediate fuel and emission reduction, the new systems, approximately 250 kg lighter than the diesel-powered equivalent, offered a secondary benefit of reduced weight, allowing Fife Creamery to increase their vehicles’ payload on each route.

Customer-focused solutions without compromise

“By partnering with our customers, we can help accelerate the industry’s transformation to electrification, proving that sustainable and diesel-free transport refrigeration is possible without compromising the cold chain,” says Jon Jerrard-Dinn, sales manager at Thermo King UK. “Our collaboration with Fife Creamery demonstrates that Thermo King has the solutions. We can help them lower their carbon footprint, reduce the impact of rising fuel costs, and keep transporting food and perishable goods efficiently and reliably.”

Fife Creamery estimates that by choosing Thermo King’s diesel-free refrigeration systems, the company will reduce its fuel consumption by up to 200,000 liters annually, reducing emissions by 1,929 mtco2e and saving the company an estimated $427,280 per year.

Most vehicles in Fife Creamery’s new fleet are already in operation, delivering chilled, frozen, and ambient-temperature products to customers across Scotland. Working in partnership for bold, sustainable refrigeration solutions, Fife Creamery, Thermo King, Frigoblock, and Trane Technologies are leading the way in reducing emissions and costs – without compromising efficiency or reliability of the cold chain.