To meet an increased demand for food service distribution from their new site at Chullora, PFD Foods recently took delivery of several brand new 14-pallet refrigerated trucks from Scully RSV.
The journey of PFD Foods began in Victoria, back in 1943 delivering seafood across the state. Post the Second World War, consumption of seafood grew and so too – the distribution network. According to the Melbourne Seafood Centre, Melbourne Fish Market back in those days was situated along Flinders and Spencer Streets and where PFD Foods made their first food deliveries.
Conveniently accessible to the rail routes delivering fresh seafood from Adelaide, it was at these markets the seafood would begin their next journey and where PFD Foods comes in.
Today PFD Foods is still headquartered in Victoria, operates over 60 distribution centres across the country and employs over 3,000 staff. The organisation is Australia’s largest family operated food service network delivering a range of dry goods, frozen and chilled products, fresh seafood and meat and confectionery. Their clientele includes pubs, clubs, cafes, airlines, hotels, restaurants, aged care facilities and retirement villages, cruise ships, resorts and theme parks, convenience outlets, venue and field caterers, fast food outlets, schools and kindergartens, and sporting, child care and correctional facilities.
In 2018, PFD Foods consolidated its Sydney operations to a purpose-built facility at Chullora. The site has 22 loading docks, a workshop, truck wash and a seafood processing facility. The site services New South Wales and into parts of the surrounding states, with seafood distribution state wide.
With such a wide distribution network and an incredible breadth of transported goods, PFD Foods needed a wide range of vehicles to carry out deliveries – from 14 pallet trucks to two pallet carriers. They contacted national refrigeration transport provider, Scully RSV, a partner of over five years.
“We’ve been using Scully’s 14-pallet trucks for deliveries to hospitals for almost a year. Other vehicles are involved in transport in the Sydney CBD and for airline food service deliveries, while the smaller vehicles were extensively used for deliveries during the busy holiday season,” says Nashenas (Nash) Zarmati, PFD’s Chullora Transport Supervisor. “Scully have great products and we get good support from Brendan Pfitzner, Scully RSV’s NSW/ACT Business Development Manager for all the fleet and servicing needs.”
Scully RSV was established over 30 years ago in Brisbane, Queensland, and true to its roots the company continues to manufacture its range of refrigerated truck bodies from the Brisbane suburb of Archerfield.
However, today the Queensland operations are complemented by its national network of company owned branch facilities.
“That’s really been the secret of Scully RSV’s incredible growth story in recent years,” says Andrew McKenzie, Scully RSV’s CEO.
“Scully RSV is uniquely positioned in the market as we have the network and breadth of fleet comparable to the other generalist rental companies that service the road transport industry, yet we have the depth of product offering to support the unique needs of cold chain logistics companies.”
Today the Scully RSV fleet comprises around 1,000 assets that range from a one-pallet Ute, through to road-train multi-temp trailers.
“The breadth and depth of our fleet supports one of the core values that Scully RSV stands for – reliability. And for food service providers this is critical,” Andrew says.
“We don’t rent prime movers; we don’t rent curtainsiders or skels. Our customers know that if they need to rent a meat hanger to cart carcases, or a 20-pallet low height roller door distribution van on a new metro supermarket job – whatever it may be – they can ring us and as Australia’s largest refrigerated truck and trailer rental company we can help them to deliver on their promises.
“If for whatever reason we don’t have it available today, chances we can facilitate a solution.”
However, fleet availability is just one element to Scully RSV’s success, compliance is the other. Of course, managing a safe and compliant fleet of trucks and trailers goes without saying, but it’s the nuance of what is required to cart temperature sensitive food and medicine that sets Scully RSV apart.
“Scully RSV has, and continues to, invest heavily in new technology to better manage compliance both within our business and with our customers,” Andrew says.
“All of Scully RSV’s new trucks and trailer come fitted with the latest GPS technology, but that’s hardly new or exciting.
“What is exciting is what we do with the data and how we can seamlessly integrate it with our customers in their day-to-day operations which is really cool, and where the operational efficiencies live for our customers.”
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