Farm Trans Fresh & Frozen: dynamic temperature-controlled transport

The speciality of this business unit lies in the transport of temperature-controlled food products. The trucks are also equipped with the latest technologies to ensure that the products are transported cooled, frozen or even heated. The latter is crucial for products like chocolate. Marco explains more: Fresh & Frozen organises the transport from point A to point B, including via its own cross dock. This ensures that both partial loads (LTL) and full loads (FTL) are in good hands.

The largest market for Farm Trans Fresh & Frozen is in Europe, particularly in England, the Benelux, Germany and Poland, but Farm Trans aims to expand. Marco adds: “It is our goal to expand into Italy, for example. We want to establish a denser network in the countries where we are currently active and grow in new markets.” Italy is an interesting country because it requires specialisation, and specialisation, in turn, offers new opportunities. Truck access in Italy is limited, Marco says: “Italy is surrounded by mountain ranges that make it challenging. In total, there are only six main routes into Italy. This demands a lot of knowledge, which we possess, fortunately. The rules and regulations in the surrounding countries constitute another challenge.”

England is also a very big market for temperature-controlled transport. Roughly 30% of all Farm Trans Fresh & Frozen transports go to England, including both guided transport and unaccompanied transport. Marco adds: “We mostly organise unaccompanied transports to England. In this case, we pick up the load in the Netherlands. We park a fully loaded trailer at Europoort or Hoek van Holland without a truck. The trailer is then driven onto the ship, sailed to England and then taken off the boat again. Once in England, our English trucks take the trailers to their intended destinations. Unaccompanied crossings are very reliable and much more sustainable.” With 126 employees, 180 of our own trailers and 74 of our own trucks and 30 permanent charters, unaccompanied transport is quite feasible and manageable.

Marco explains more about reliable transport: “All our transport is reliable because we are asset-based. This enables us to have complete control over the entire logistics process. That’s also why we score so high in on-time performance (OTP). No matter what logistics challenge we face, we always have the solution.

The solid basis of Farm Trans Fresh & Frozen ensures that we are ready for the future and any developments that it may bring. The biggest challenge? Reducing the number of kilometres driven with an empty truck, which is both economically and ecologically irresponsible. Marco also describes the vision for this particular business unit: “Transporting in a sustainable manner while growing further with our current customers on the basis of the trust we have earned through the years of service. In the future, we also want to have a network for temperature-controlled products that covers Europe in its entirety.”