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One sector that still thrives on bespoke bodywork is food
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home delivery, which is dominated by 3.5-tonne chassis with either cohverted panel-van bodies or chassiscabs with box bodies.
Home deliveries are logistically demanding and food home deliveries more so, Not only do vehicles have to negotiate narrow residential streets, but the food must be kept at a safe temperature. Multitemperature bodies are the solution, but any standardisation stops there, explains Chris Berridge, managing director of Hull-based Pane!Tex, which builds bociies for the Asda, Ocado and Tesco home delivery operations.
Tesco, for example, specifies a box body with nearside roller shutters giving access to the load, which is compartmentalised Into frozen, chilled and ambient goods. Deliveries are consolidated and loaded at the nearest store to the customer by the driver.
Asda's home delivery service is also store-based, with drivers responsible for loading the delivery totes. Asda, however, has chosen a walk-in design with a moveable horizontal bulkhead. This gives extra flexibility in arranging the compartment size for ambient and chilled.
Ocado's bodies reflect its hub-and-spoke operation, in which deliveries are loaded at the Hatfield central distribution centre. Individual delivery totes are preloaded into roll cages, which are then loaded onto the vehicle through the rear, four to each body. For deliveries, the driver accesses the chilled compartment from a central door in a cross-through ambient compartment at the front of the vehicle.
Berridge says the vehicles do require more maintenance, but because of the operation rather than the complexity of the bodywork. "Most of the maintenance work is the repair of accident damage. Bolted components are critical to help speed repairs.'