Specialist snacks and ingredient retailer Julian Graves has joined a congestion reduction trial that is to be extended into next year.
The Broadmead Freight Consolidation Scheme in Bristol, which has 50 retailers taking part, has proved so successful that the city council and logistics partner Exel aim to extend it and bring more food retailers on board.
Julian Graves is the first food retailer to join the scheme, which currently caters only for ambient, but Bristol City Council hopes that will change.
A council spokeswoman said: “It may be possible to cater for chilled and frozen foods if demand supports the capital outlay for refrigeration.”
Exel runs the consolidation centre on the Bristol periphery to which retailers make deliveries. The loads are placed on to one lorry for onward delivery to the Broadmead Shopping Centre.
The project has reduced the number of lorries travelling to and from the city centre by 66%.
ECR UK is continuing with a similar consolidation trial with food retailers in various cities that could result in supermarket rivals sharing deliveries (The Grocer, October 22, p12).
Palmer & Harvey McLane has won a three-year contract with forecourt operators Pace Petroleum and Malthurst. The deal will include field support and nationwide distribution to their network of more than 270 petrol forecourts, and is worth more than £60m at retail per annum. Malthurst has moved to P&H after the end of its contract with Blueheath.

Northern Foods’ half-year pre-tax profit to October 1 rose 5.8% to £25.7m on sales up 2.8% to £700m. It has warned that trading conditions remain “difficult”.

Tesco has launched an online digital photo processing service in partnership with Pixology. Andrew Clarke, commercial operations manager for photo processing at Tesco, said: “The launch of Tescophoto.com will allow us to offer a full range of printing services to customers at competitive prices.”

Wine warehouse chain Majestic Wine’s half-year pre-tax profit to September 26 rose 18% to £5.9m on total sales up 8.3% last year to £80.8m. UK like-for-likes rose 5.5%.

Cadbury Schweppes’ sale of its European soft drinks unit could be completed by the end of the year. Reports suggest that three private equity groups - Permira, PAI Partners and a team of Lion Capital and Blackstone - are all in the running for the business, which is set to sell for £1.1bn. The unit includes Schweppes, Orangina, TriNa and La Casera brands.

Chilled food group Uniq reported a “poor” first half to October 1, with operating loss before significant items up from £1.2m to £9.6m for its UK businesses. Total UK sales were down 1% to £160.6m. Group debt rose by £45.2m.
Contract for p&H
Northern increase
Tesco pix online
Majestic sales up
cadbury unit sale
uniq struggles