One in three lorries on the road are empty, a startling figure of both major financial and environmental cost. So why is it proving so hard to fix?
It’d be easy to assume that the endless stream of lorries ploughing along on the inside lane of Britain’s motorways are all carrying something somewhere. But that’s far from the case. For all the efforts made by businesses to boost efficiencies and cut carbon emissions in recent years, one in three lorries on Britain’s roads is still empty, according to figures from the Department for Transport (DfT).
The positive news is that there is now a concerted effort to tackle the problem, with everyone from haulage giants to innovative startups working to cut down these empty miles. The downside is that many of the problems are complex. There is also some powerful resistance to change, with some manufacturers finding that despite their efforts to make improvements, they often encounter supermarkets unwilling to play ball.
As it stands, supermarkets are typically more efficient when bringing goods from their warehouses to stores. This is because in most cases there is something there waiting for them to pick up, whether it be used packaging or empty roll cages. The much bigger question – and therefore opportunity for improvement – is how the number of empty trucks from manufacturer’s delivering to DCs can be reduced.
Food manufacturers across the country are trying to cut emissions and save money by taking vehicles off the road – both by collaborating more with other suppliers and by encouraging retailers to allow a single lorry to drop off goods at numerous supermarkets during the same trip.
Supermarkets’ problem with collaboration between suppliers to reduce the number of lorries on the road is that, in many cases, the primary distribution that brings goods from a factory to a DC is a valuable revenue stream for supermarkets. They act as a broker between haulage companies and food manufacturers, meaning if fewer loads are needed, supermarket incomes would suffer.
When it comes to the idea of one lorry dropping at several retailers, the objections are typically more emotive. “They’re very territorial,” the source says. “I can understand why they might be sensitive about a Tesco lorry turning up at a Waitrose. But that’s happening already. They just don’t know it.”