Kirkcaldy, Scotland: Fife Creamery is putting 30 new Canter 7.5-tonners, the first of the latest Canters to enter service in Scotland, and two 18-tonne Mercedes-Benz Actros into its fleet.
Most of Fife Creamery’s new Canters are already on the road, all are supplied by Ciceley Commercials, and with Fife Creamery’s new livery.
Fife Creamery delivers chilled, frozen and ambient products to sandwich bars, butchers, convenience stores and retailers, as well as catering outlets.
Fife Creamery favours the Fuso brand for its payload, fuel-efficiency, compact dimensions, and suitability for urban multi-drop work.
The Canter comes with a three-year, unlimited mileage warranty. Fife Creamery extended this with a further two years’ cover.
The new Canter has a redesign cab with better insulation that reduces in-cab noise. A new exhaustmeets the Euro VI – Step E emission standard. Fife Creamery’s trucks use the 3-litre common-rail 175hp engine and automated manual transmissions.
Gray & Adams built the dual-compartment, fresh and frozen, insulated bodywork. Refrigeration is by a truck-engine driven Thermo King V-800 Series.
Fife Creamery added frozen food services following the addition of a frozen cold store with capacity for up to 1,000 pallets.
Fife Creamery purchased its first Fuso Canters in 2014. These are now being stood down, along with a number of Mercedes-Benz Atego 7.5-tonners from 2012 and 2013, although the company continues to operate nine Canters from 2019-20.
The fleet also includes five 18-tonne Actros – a sixth is on order – that pull drawbar trailers and are allocated to more distant runs, or those involving particularly high volumes.
Logistics Manager Richard Wishart said: “The Canter is not a long-haul truck but it’s excellent for the kind of intensive delivery work that we undertake in busy urban centres such as Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.
“Despite the fridge body, and with a driver and full tanks of fuel and AdBlue also factored in, ours will still take a 3-tonne payload – that’s almost a tonne more than you’d get on a conventional 7.5-tonner. At 18 miles per gallon, the Canter is also comfortably ahead in terms of fuel economy, and this contributes to its overall cost-effectiveness.
“We work these vehicles hard,” he continued. “Each will typically clock-up 70,000 miles a year, so the fact that the Canter is backed by Mercedes-Benz, and we can get a full five years’ warranty cover, is another important plus.”
This is also the first time that Fife Creamery has purchased vehicles from Ciceley Commercials. “The new Canter looks smarter and more modern than the outgoing model,” Wishart said.
Pictured are Fife Creamery logistics manager Richard Wishart with Ciceley Commercials Fuso sales executive Simon Fletcher.
