Morrisons goes long again with Gray & Adams

Morrisons has begun taking deliveries from Gray & Adams of a third batch of maximum-length semi-trailers.

The last trailer is scheduled to enter service next autumn, by which time the supermarket will be running well over 100 examples.

However, in a ‘first’ for the company, Morrsions has opted for multi-temperature refrigeration – Carrier Vector 1950s with dual-discharge slim line evaporators, opposed to single-temperature systems with fans.

Gray & Adams has built more long semi-trailers than any other manufacturer of insulated and temperature-controlled transport equipment and, like their predecessors, Morrisons’ latest boxes are being fitted with 27-degree BPW self-tracking axles that allow them to meet turning circle requirements.

John Ward, Head of Engineering at Morrisons, said: “We’ve purchased these latest trailers for operation in the south of the country, where there is more traffic congestion and where, as a result, the loads are likely to be on the vehicles for longer periods.

“The switch to multi-temperature refrigeration allows us to guarantee the integrity of three separate regimes in the most demanding of circumstances.

“The self-steer axle works very well and helps to ensure that the long trailers are able to access a very high proportion of our 400 large stores nationwide.”

Morrisons is running its extended semi-trailers as part of a long-term trial launched in 2012 and backed by the Department for Transport.

The Government wants to see how the additional length – 14.6m variants are also included – might help to increase efficiency and cut the number of vehicles on UK roads.

Morrisons is unique among Britain’s supermarkets in that as well as being a leading retailer it is also the country’s second largest fresh food manufacturer, making more than half of the food it sells.