Transportation

Goal: 10% reduction per unit of production of fossil fuel consumption through improved efficiency of product distribution network.

Transporting our goods from field to factory to store creates opportunities to improve our systems and work with our logistical carriers to reduce fuel consumption and GHG emissions. Heinz is taking even more steps to improve the environment by focusing attention on transportation, especially in the UK and North America.

United Kingdom

Heinz partnered with other leading UK food companies to reduce the environmental impact of transporting food and groceries. In Fiscal 2009, the effort removed the equivalent of 53 million miles from UK roads and 26 million liters of diesel fuel per year as a result of sharing vehicles and implementing more efficient warehousing practices.

Other achievements include improving transport efficiencies using a dedicated link road; utilizing super-light trailers and reducing the movement of trailers that are empty; improving the total amount of material placed on the trailer; reducing the number of depots by using a regional planning hub; reusing shipping containers for customer deliveries; and converting to a reusable pallet service. More than 400,000km have been eliminated along with more than 575 tons of C02-eq as a result of these efforts.

Heinz has also worked with our sole transport company in the UK and Ireland to develop the first Total Pallet Management service in Europe. This optimizes the use of pallets and allows them to be returned to the facility for reuse. Located at the Kitt Green facility, the plant is capable of sorting 300 pallets per hour.

North America

Heinz North America is requiring all carriers to be qualified (or be in the process of becoming qualified) under the United States Environmental Protection Agency Smart Way Program. In Fiscal 2009, 21 of 24 carriers were certified and three others were in the process of obtaining their certification. http://www.epa.gov/smartway/

Other efforts to responsibly transport Heinz products focused on increasing intermodal (transportation of truck trailer on rail to a point of delivery) and rail boxcar usage. We increased our intermodal transportation by 26% between Fiscal Years 2008 and 2009. Those activities reduced the number of trucks on the highway, avoiding the generation of 11,223 tons of CO2-eq. Heinz also increased its use of intermodal for customer deliveries, resulting in 279 trucks deliveries removed from the highway.

FY 2008 vs. FY 2007

  • Closed Fiscal 2008 at 44% rail utilization vs. 18.5% in Fiscal 2007
  • Shipped 1,205 boxcars via intermodal vs. 702 – this was a 71.7% improvement
  • Shipped 175M lbs. of potatoes vs. 101M lbs – a 73.5% improvement
  • Improved amount of material per boxcar by 10.1%
  • Saved 9,952 tons of CO2-eq as we eliminated 3,850 trucks on the highways with increased intermodal use

New Zealand

In New Zealand, Heinz has partnered with our logistical suppliers to reduce the consumption of diesel fuel and lubricant in the freight vehicles (rail and road) used to provide shipments for Wattie's. In Fiscal 2009, compared to a Fiscal 2007 baseline, transportation fuel consumption (liter) per ton of product shipped was reduced by 18%.