MMC
Our Mobile Milk Collection (MMC) carriers drive some 3 million km per year to bring our dairy farmers' milk to our factories. We achieve CO₂ reductions mainly by planning trips more efficiently and by additional measures taken by our transporters, such as using newer and cleaner trucks. Some of them also apply CO₂ offsets. In 2023, we conducted a pilot with Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) at one of our RMO carriers. This is a biodiesel fuel produced from renewable sources such as vegetable oils, animal fats and waste oils. The use of HVO in trucks results in CO₂ savings of 90%. By using HVO at one transporter from August to December 2023, we saved 354 tonnes of CO2 in 2023.
Transport to the customer
In 2023, we looked at options for making our transport within Europe more sustainable. We have made more use of train transport and short sea transport to further destinations within Europe, reducing road mileage. For the transport of end products, we will continue to do as much pre-transport to the ports by water as possible, making maximum use of the cargo space.
In Gorinchem, 92% of our finished products were transported by water (in 2022 it was 90%), in Scharsterbrug 94 (in 2022 it was 89%) and in Barneveld 82% (in 2022 it was 83%). In 2023, Scharsterbrug started using an inland shipping terminal closer to our factory and we will also provide our pre-transport for exports from Putten by water. We also started studies last year on the use of electric transport and/or biofuel by our transporters. We will continue with this in 2024 in order to come up with specific plans.
Warehouse expansion
In addition, we are expanding our own warehouse at our factories in Gorinchem and Barneveld. This involves an expansion by approximately 13,500 pallet places. This expansion will save us a significant amount of unnecessary mileage to and from external sites. We thus achieve a significant reduction in the number of kilometres travelled.