'food miles' - transport within the UK

getting the boxes from Riverford to the doorstep

UK distribution accounts for over a third of Riverford’s carbon footprint (click here for more) and is the area where it is proving most difficult to make significant savings. Most studies of food distribution have shown that the final step to the door (whether in personal shopping trips by car or home delivery by van) is the most energy consuming; though the distances may be relatively short, the loads are typically small. The result is that though most of the miles are done in a truck, most of the energy use and CO₂ emissions are caused by cars and to a lesser extent vans.

To keep the less efficient trips by van to a minimum, if the journey is more than 30 miles we will normally send the boxes by HGV to a local 'hub' where they are loaded into a van for final delivery, typically within a radius of 10 to 25 miles. The total emissions from the vans are twice those from the lorries:

what are we doing to reduce those emissions?

our trucks (13% of our emissions)

reducing HGV miles through regional farms

Back in the distant days when we sold our veg to the supermarkets, our co-op’s vegetables traveled an average of 500 miles to reach the supermarket shelves. Frustration with this wastage and the associated cost and loss of freshness was one of the main reasons for starting our box scheme in 1993. As we dropped the supermarkets and sold more boxes the area we covered from Devon expanded from the South West across the South of the UK and the average journey by HGV grew to 150 miles; a lot less than previously but still too far.

By 2004 the market had grown to a level where we thought we could sell all our vegetables more locally and we hatched a plan to set up a network of regional farms* that would grow some vegetables themselves and, combining them with produce from other local growers pack boxes similar to ours for delivery to houses within 50 to 100 miles.

Four years later we have four regional farms running in partnership with local farmers and are about to open a fifth.

In 2007 we opened a pack house at Norton, in Hampshire, with the aim of reducing the distance traveled by our boxes in an HGV. Since then the average box distance by HGV has dropped to 125 miles across Riverford boxes, it would be further still if we were to set up a network farm closer to London, as boxes destined for the south east are still packed in Devon.

* Use the links at the top of the page to go to our regional farm websites.

We have yet to find a partner in Kent or Evesham but when our network is complete the average journey would drop to below 100 miles. At this level we will be contributing only 20% of the HGV miles traveled when we supplied the supermarkets. Each delivery will have caused just 0.24 kg of CO₂ emissions in HGV distribution, the equivalent of driving an average family car 0.7 miles. We will never be the most local box scheme grown by the family down the road and I hope there will always be a place for these schemes. Our aim is to be a sane, pragmatic and realistic alternative to the madness of supermarket distribution by satisfying a broader range of customers who would not be content with the limited range of a genuinely local scheme (or are not within reach of one).

On top of working to reduce the actual distance traveled we have been looking at ways to make trucks more fuel efficient, which is quite tough. Already we use the highest spec trucks available in terms of pollution reduction; most are Euro 4 standard with a few on Euro 5, which came in late 2007. We also have fairly well specified aerodynamics although we are testing some new aerodynamic kit at the moment which uses vortices to streamline the vehicles and improve the fuel efficiency by a few %. It might seem small but it will make a significant difference to CO₂ emissions over the life of the truck.

our vans (26% of our emissions)

Our largest single contribution to global warming comes from the vans delivering boxes to the doorstep. At 26% of our greenhouse gas emissions, this amounts to 0.7 kg of CO₂ per delivery, the equivalent of driving the average family car 2 miles. Even at this level research by the University of Exeter suggests that it compares favorably with other forms of shopping and that home delivery is generally more efficient than car based shopping trips.

what are we doing to reduce the environmental cost of home delivery?

This is proving to be our biggest challenge

1. For the last year we have been experimenting with dual powered (battery and pedal) trikes in London. They do have the potential to substantially reduce emissions in a cost effective way in relatively flat urban areas. On the down side they rely heavily on the commitment and enthusiasm of the operators; not all van drivers make keen cyclists, especially on a windy day in January. We plan to slowly increase the pedal powered fleet and look for drivers with strong calves.

2. electric vans. In urban areas with relatively short distances between stops they can reduce emissions substantially compared to a diesel powered vehicle. Unfortunately they are prohibitively expensive (currently about £40k compared to £15k for a diesel van); as things stand we can get better environmental benefits by investing elsewhere (click here for more about this) but we will keep this under review.

3. bio-diesel Over three years we have experimented with and researched the pro-and cons of converting vans to bio-diesel and reached the conclusion that this would contribute little if anything to reducing our environmental impact. For more information see our renewable page; the (link to renewables and link to biofuels)

4. and the more boring but equally important stuff

We have researched various options for minimizing emissions from our current delivery vans and put them together in a ‘green page’ of guidance, ranging from simply checking tyre pressures on a regular basis to which height and length of van to choose depending on the delivery area. We are also encouraging all of our van drivers to take part in the government SAFED driver courses, these aim to improve not only the safety of our drivers but also their fuel efficiency, some showing reduction in fuel use of 10% following the course!

We are also taking part in a ‘green fleet review’ with the Energy Saving Trust to ensure we are on the right track and hopefully find out what more we can do.

5. carefully planned rounds Some of our customers view us as intransigent, but by organizing rounds on a weekly basis we are able to minimize the distance traveled per drop (currently about 1 mile in urban areas and 2 miles in rural areas). Being as flexible and responsive as Tesco home delivery might win us more customers but would increase by many times the emissions associated what is already the worst stage in the vegetables journey.

6. consolidation - an uncomfortable paradox. In our heart of hearts we like to sell what we really know about: what grows in the fields around us. But paradoxically local specialist producers with independent distribution can be a disaster for the environment. If the veg man, the butcher, the baker, the dairy and the fish man deliver independently or discerning shoppers make multiple trips to specialist shops the result is an incredibly damaging and inefficient distribution system. Sensible distribution systems require a degree of consolidation, something that usually increases the geographical distance and decreases the sense of connection between supplier and consumer. The wider the basket of products delivered or bought in the final trip, the lower will be the total environmental impact. If it were not for their ridiculous packaging, excessively long distribution routes, rejection of seasonality and large out of town, car-dependent stores, it could be argued that supermarkets had the potential to be the most efficient option; quite a lot of ifs.

An appreciation of the uncomfortable costs of independent specialisation has changed our policy; we used to be adamant that we did not want to become an on-line grocer and that we would stick to what we knew. Our policy is now one of pragmatic compromise; we will slowly increase the range that we deliver to cover as many of the main food categories as we can without losing site of the founding ethics of the business. We already sell dairy produce from our own farm, meat largely from our co-op’s farms, eggs and more fruit and this range will continue to grow.

Riverford sustainable development project

'food miles' - transport within the UK