After a competitive open tender, DAF has won an £11.7m order from Carlsberg UK for 98 new trucks for its in-house national distribution service.
Representing one of DAF’s biggest and most prestigious orders, the new vehicles will be the first DAF trucks on Carlsberg UK’s distribution fleet for 10 years, and will be based at eight of Carlsberg UK’s regional distribution centres across the UK doing multi-drop deliveries of beer, plus associated items such as gas cylinders.
DAF was able to provide vehicles that perfectly matched Carlsberg UK’s particular safety and environmental requirements, and is supplying them via a six year ‘Hire Plus’ agreement from its own PACCAR Financial PLC.
The 98 vehicles include 15t and 18t LF rigid models, plus 26t CF and 6×2 tractors all sporting Carlsberg UK’s new hop leaf livery. The CF tractor units are expected to do an annual mileage of around 130,000 km each, and around 60,000 km each for the LF and CF rigid models doing more local deliveries, making a total annual mileage in excess of four million kilometers for the new vehicles, which is why durability and a strong aftersales support from the DAF dealer network was a key reason why Carlsberg UK chose DAF this time.
Carlsberg UK is one of the only major beer and beverage businesses to retain its own drivers and in-house national distribution service, so used feedback from its drivers and trainers to specifically tailor the new trucks to the way it works, such as needing a low load height for unloading, and complying with strict load security safety standards, which DAF Trucks Sales Director, Ian Grant, worked closely with Carlsberg UK to achieve.
The curtainside bodies were designed to comply with the EN 12642XL load security standard, and to ensure the load stays inside the vehicle in the event of emergency braking or an accident, Carlsberg UK specified its own design of bungee restraint system able to withstand a 1g forward load restraint. The bespoke design also maximized the payload available by including safe storage of gas cylinders and trays which the trucks also carry.
