BRS breaks into reefers
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• BRS is to open a dedicated reefer rental business with a fleet of 50 vehicles operating out of the BRS depot at Erdington, near Birmingham.
The fleet comprises 15 Mercedes panel vans, 24 7.5-tonne Mercedes and Leyland Dafs, and 11 Daf 1900 and ERE 17-tonners.
Despite the recession BRS expects strong demand for the new service.
It has found it difficult to source reefers for hiring out to customers and believes the Food Safety Act (CM 28 Nov-4 Dec 1991) will result in more use of reefers by operators who did not previously need them.
Manager Jean Keeling expects business to range from one-man delivery businesses to larger companies such as Walls and Booker Fitch.
We hope a lot of the vehicles will be taken on long-term hire," he says. "We already have several three-month bookings up to Christmas and have found that in fact reefers are not as prone to seasonal peaks and troughs as is often thought.
"We know there is a need for this service because we spent the summer sourcing reefers for customers in preparation for the arrival of our own rental fleet, and often had to go a long way to get them," says Keeling.
"If it was uneconomic for us to do it, it must be uneconomic for many operators in the Midlands," he concludes.