Crate service
Crate service
Sainsbury's has outsourced the management of eight million crates for food produce to Hays Asset Control Solutions (Hays ACS) as part of its strategy to reduce packaging and meet its environmental targets. At the same time,Sainsbury's has switched its slow-moving goods such as batteries, hair care products and toiletries – known as "K line" items – to an additional 750,000 newly-designed RTP (returnable transit packaging) containers. The retail giant has made a massive commitment to recycling – targeting a switch from 38 per cent non-cardboard today to 75 per cent RTP for produce by 2005 – and has contracted Hays ACS, part of Hays plc, for seven years to supply, wash and manage the plastic crate pool. As part of the RTP logistics process, Hays ACS is also recovering 160,000 tonnes of packaging per annum from Sainsbury's supermarkets, collating it regionally, and then bulk supplying the material to recycling specialists who used to collect it on an expensive piecemeal basis. The "K line" pool will be controlled at two new depots at Stoke and Hoddesdon that will have a combined footplate of 530,000sq.ft. and for which Sainsbury's and Hays ACS together specified and sourced the design of a special crate suitable for slow-moving non-food goods. Materials handling specialists in both Germany and The Netherlands were consulted to ensure the crates, eventually sourced from Sweden, were of the right weight and dimension for the retailer's fully automated warehousing and distribution system.
