Potato plant goes green

A potato processing plant in Shropshire has slashed both its carbon footprint and its fuel bills, after switching to LPG-powered forklift trucks from Jofson Mitsubishi.

ER Birch & Sons considered several options when looking for forklift trucks, aiming to cut emissions and costs without compromising performance to load and unload huge, 1t boxes of potatoes for sorting, grading and storage at heights to 6m.

The fleet of five Grendia FG30N2 trucks combine fuel economy and reliability with flexible rental terms. The company says the LPG trucks offer cleaner, quieter performance than diesel in a food-handling environment where much of the work is done indoors and that LPG is significantly more friendly to the wider environment, producing about half the total greenhouse gases of diesel (1.7kg/L compared with 3.2kg).

ER Birch has five new 3t LPG trucks on site. Operators have been impressed by their ability to handle 11 and 12h shifts, performing shuttle and long run work in challenging agricultural conditions.

The Grendia's standardissue belly plate and enclosed wheel arches afford ample protection in the plant's muddy, rugged surroundings, while custom LED spotlights on the mast enable safe performance at height in the pitch-black storehouses.

Mitsubishi's fuel injection system with three-way, closedloop catalytic converter and switchable engine performance ensures trucks deliver realworld fuel consumption to match published economy figures.