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The UK’s largest water cooler company has come up with a refreshing alternative to the traditional 3.5- or 4.6-tonne service van for its ‘cooler care’ installation and maintenance engineers, in the shape of a new fleet of Mercedes Vitos.
Nestlé Waters Powwow is now running 68 Long-bodied Vito 111CDIs, as well as 15 Mercedes Atego 12-tonners, all of which were supplied under an international vehicle acquisition deal.
They arrived via Wellingborough dealer Intercounty Truck and Van and are the subject of contract hire arrangements with independent specialist Artegy, vehicle servicing being undertaken by the most conveniently located Mercedes-Benz dealers.
Nestlé Waters Powwow’s water is drawn from aquifers deep underground in rural locations in Buckinghamshire and Warwickshire. Crucially, the company bottles its water at source, in its award-winning centres, rather than transporting it for bottling elsewhere. This ensures the water’s quality, and reduces the impact of the company’s operations on the environment by restricting transport movements.
The Vitos are assigned to cooler care engineers who visit customer premises, including factories, offices, schools, hospitals, and even private homes, to install or service their water coolers on site; the Atego are used to deliver water in 13-, 17.5- and 18.9-litre bottles.
It is a booming business, not least because of the heightened focus on healthy lifestyles – the Food Standards Agency says adults should drink at least 1.5 litres of water every day, and more when the temperature rises, but few do.
Nestlé Waters Powwow has UK headquarters in Oxford and 14 depots, strategically located throughout the country. The company has grown rapidly through a series of integrations and acquisitions and as a result most commercial vehicles marques are represented within its overall fleet of 192 trucks and 138 vans.
Fleet Co-ordinator Paul Watkins explains: “The fleet is very diverse and our aim now is to standardise as soon as possible on one manufacturer, with Mercedes-Benz as our preferred supplier. The international deal concluded between Nestlé and Mercedes-Benz in Germany means we benefit from highly competitive purchase prices. More importantly, though, the vehicles are ideally suited to our operation.” |
Until now, those responsible for installing and maintaining the company’s comprehensive range of coolers have tended to use larger vans – Intercounty has also recently supplied eight Mercedes Sprinters, four 3.5-tonners and four 4.6-tonners.
“But we wanted to find a smaller van for use in towns and cities, where parking and other access issues can be a real headache,” continues Mr Watkins. “The 2.77-tonne Vito Long is significantly smaller and more manoeuvrable than a 3.5-tonner; it can even get in and out of low-ceilinged multi-storey car parks. But it also offers a very usable load area, which makes it ideal for this role.”
Specially fitted out for the job by racking specialist Bott, the Vitos are proving a big hit with Nestlé Waters Powwow’s cooler care engineers. Not only do they appreciate the model’s comfortable, car-like driving character, many take their vehicles home at night. Where they might have struggled to get their previous van on and off their private driveway, the Vito is easy by comparison.
The company’s Atego 1218L trucks have BlueTec® Euro 4 SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction) engines and are fitted with lightweight aluminium bodies specially designed for carrying bottled water and built in Hungary by Alcoa-Kofem.
These are split into four bays, each with roller shutter doors on both sides; one bay is slightly wider than the other three because it also accommodates the trolley used by the driver to carry bottles in and out of premises. The water is carried in purpose-designed racks, each able to carry 32 bottles which are angled back towards the centre of the truck for secure transportation.
“The Atego give us a payload of about six tonnes, which allows us to carry 270 bottles,” says Paul Watkins. “That represents a very useful improvement in productivity over our 7.5-tonners, which carry between 150 and 170 bottles depending on the model.” |
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