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• Reefer drivers delivering to the big supermarkets' composite warehouses say they are sick of the treatment they receive from staff.
They talk of being forced to queue for hours on end, even if they arrive on time. Their companies' pallets are not replaced, they say, and their complaints are ignored.
When Tesco's divisional director of composites, Jim Spittle, spelt out what Tesco demanded of its suppliers he prompted an angry response from big fleet hauliers and drivers.
Last month Spittle told reefer hauliers' body Transfrigoroute that non-standard or broken pallets were unacceptable, and that if drivers were late they would have to join the back of the queue.
One owner-driver, who wants to remain anonymous, blames the operators of the warehouses; companies such as Hays, Christian Salvesen and Exel Logistics, as well as Tesco: "You are lucky if you get tipped on time once in every 10 deliveries," he says.
"The longer I wait, the more mileage I lose. My customer does pay a day rate as well, so I don't lose out completely. But you've got to blame the people who book your time," he adds. "On some multiple-drop schedules you still wouldn't have time if you threw 10 boxes out of the window on the way past.
OUTSIDERS
"The job would be made unbelievably easier if you got tipped even within one hour of turning up. The warehouse staff are all unionised and work at a certain pace which can't be altered. Hauliers are treated like outsiders who don't matter — a gateman was joking last week that I'd only been there six hours," he says. It has got to change. Hauliers should start charging composites for delays — if Tesco is as good as Mr Spittle says, he shouldn't mind that, We never will start charging, of course."
Another haulier comments: "The bigger the supermarkets get, the more arrogant they become."
The indignation generated by Tesco's new working practices seems to have taken Spittle by surprise. He is overseeing a team which is studying methods of unloading suppliers' lorries. "It's up to us all to do a little bit better," he says. "We're always open to ideas on how things could be improved — that's why I went along to Transfrigoroute.
"Hauliers should tell the depots when z they have a problem," he adds. "They often don't, possibly because they fear '1 they would face an even bigger problem 2 next time. I don't believe they would."
Tom Inglis of Sun Valley Poultry, who O is the current chairman of Transfrigoroute, hears a lot of complaints from his members, but he is short on sympathy: "We have few problems. Maybe we stick to our times better. If we do have a repeated problem we certainly take it up with the depot.
"I sometimes feel the conversation is held at the wrong level, with traffic clerks arguing with each other," he adds. "If you get the managers involved you look at the big picture. At the cold stores we deal with regularly we got booking times to suit both parties." "It's the same with cold stores that ban drivers standing on the loading bank," says Inglis. "When they try that with our drivers I tell them 'no way, Jose'. The driver is this company's representative when the goods are being taken off."
Pallets represent a big problem which has regularly been discussed by supermarkets, their composite operators and food manufacturers. But hauliers, who are the worst affected, seem to have been ignored.
The issue, which affects all cold stores, is illustrated by Tesco's experience over the past 14 months. When Tesco sent out its guidelines for its composite warehouses in October 1990 it called for "pallet banks" to be set up, enabling immediate one-for-one swaps to be made — one empty pallet received for every full one delivered.
This rarely happens in practice. Hauliers find that they run up credits for up to 100 pallets at a time with individual cold stores; drivers get fed-up because it is yet another source of paperwork and something else to worry about.
Hauliers never know when they are going to be able to take away empty pallets, and when they do they sometimes have to pick up so many that they cannot take a proper load. GKN Chep has recognised the problem and now allows hauliers to stop paying for pallets if they have asked for them and been refused three times.
RESPONSIBILITY
Substantial amounts of money are involved in pallets: more than 10,000 pallets a week are delivered to Tesco cold stores alone. The major supermarkets are certainly prepared to accept financial responsibility for pallets, the way hauliers must when they accept a load.
The composite operators and the food companies blame each other. Tesco's pallet bank has been depleted because, it claims, food manufacturers have repeatedly sent damaged pallets which have to be destroyed on health grounds.
Tesco is promising better management of pallets in the future. It has just introduced a more streamlined system of administration, issuing straightforward vouchers when a pallet is owed to a haulier instead of relying on a section of the gate-pass delivery record. This change will not solve the fundamental problem, but at least it shows that it is being taken seriously.
The composite operators say that all food companies should provide a pallet bank, but the food suppliers are still not happy about all the pallets which have disappeared, regardless of condition.
Next month the UK Association of Frozen Food Manufacturers and the Cold Storage and Distribution Federation will meet to discuss the "debt", but many experts in the industry are pessimistic about an early solution.
Next year the AFFM and the CDSF plan to strengthen their links by teaming up to form the Controlled Temperature Confederation. Meanwhile, as always, the hauliers sit and wait.
by Jack Semple