Colruyt stays committed to shortsea

A few years ago Colruyt switched part of its imports from Greece to shortsea. Since the beginning of 2015 the number of departures has been increased. Various commodities (wine, tomato paste, canned fruit) are now shipped in several weekly shipments from the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki. In doing so, Colruyt reduces its CO2 emissions by almost 1 tonne per shipment compared to transport by truck, an important criterion in the assessment Colruyt had made as an environmentally conscious shipper.

To enable this, Colruyt has decided to join hands with ACB Agencies, an Antwerp-based company that offers with its SEA45 service a fleet of 45′ PWHC (pallet-wide and high-cube) containers (capacity of 89m³), which can load the equivalent of a full truck load (33 europallets). The service is carried out on a door-to-door basis, taking the goods directly to Colruyt’s various distribution centres in Flemish and Walloon Brabant. For heavy loads, involving a maximum of 30 pallets, use is also made of 40′ pallet-wide containers. Next to the environmental aspect of the goods flow, there is also the cost factor that convinced Colruyt to get on board with ACB Agencies.

Apart from its SEA45 services from Greece ACB Agencies also offers a similar service for the Turkish market, which also makes use of intermodal transport for freight that requires a faster transit time.

The cooperation between Colruyt and ACB Agencies also extends to import cargo from the UK, one of ACB Agencies’ home markets. Since 1995 it is indeed an agent for BG Freight with container possibilities towards Ireland, England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The company won the Shortsea Award in 2011 with an innovative intermodal concept from South Germany to the United Kingdom for Bosch-Siemens.

ACB Agencies – Glenn De Clercq – Tel + 32 3 546 44 10 – gdc@acbgroup.be – www.acbgroup.be
Colruyt – Yoeri Defrenne – Yoeri.defrenne@colruytgroup.com

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