Bringing in the Halloween harvest

Oct 26, 2013 Warehousing Ireland News Comments Off on Bringing in the Halloween harvest

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Lincolnshire-based David Bowman Ltd is Europe’s largest pumpkin grower.

Each year the company grows two million pumpkins, which it sells to UK supermarkets as well as other suppliers across Europe.

Of course, Autumn is the company’s busiest period: the year’s pumpkin crop has to be harvested, prepared, packed and delivered to the shelves of David Bowman’s retail clients in time for the Halloween rush.

To help cope with this annual spike in activity, the company  regularly hires a fleet of counterbalanced forklifts from Jungheinrich UK Ltd’s short term rental fleet.

The electric powered forklifts, which are on site at David Bowman Ltd for approximately two months, are used to transfer crates of harvested and washed pumpkins from the trailers that bring them in from the field to Bowman’s 120,000 sq ft temperature controlled store and ‘pack house’.

The crates are block stacked five high and the pumpkins are left to ripen at a constant 25 degrees in the facility, which was built in 1997 and recently extended to cope with increased demand.

Once ripe, the crate loads of pumpkins are delivered by the forklift trucks from the temperature controlled store to the packing area. Here they are placed in shop ready display trays and retail merchandise is added.

Orders are palletised and transferred to a goods-out marshalling space where they await collection.

Given the highly time-sensitive nature of David Bowman’s operation, the temporary forklift fleet has to be reliable and this has always been a major factor in the company’s decision to hire Jungheinrich products because, on average, the trucks in Jungheinrich’s 4,000-strong short term rental fleet are less than two year’s old.

Neil Warren, Jungheinrich UK Ltd’s Used Equipment and Short Term Rental Director, comments: “We have what we believe is the youngest fleet of short term rental forklifts available. And because our short term rental trucks are, on average, less than two years old, David Bowman get state-of-the-art equipment that not only looks good but is energy efficient and ultra reliable – not trucks that have been out on contract hire for five years and come with five years’ worth of problems!”

Trucks from Jungheinrich’s entire range, from pallet handlers to state-of-the-art high lift reach trucks, are available on short term rental and models can usually be delivered within 24 hours – or often on the same day.

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