NOYNOY Intermodal Transportation

BUSINESS: 331 PRACTICES
FrieslandCampina Hellas is a member of Royal FrieslandCampina, one of the largest dairy cooperatives in the world with a deep tradition of almost 150 years. Royal FrieslandCampina is fully committed to providing high quality dairy products that help millions of consumers every day to follow nutritional standards that contribute to the maintenance of good health of the human body. With a turnover of €11.3 billion, it is one of the world's largest dairy companies with 17,413 farmer members, 23,816 employees, offices in 36 countries and exports to more than 100 countries.
https://www.nounou.gr/FrieslandCampinaHellas/
With the objective to take action so as to combat climate change and its impacts on the environment and at the same time, safeguarding the values of integrity and reliability, FrieslandCampina Hellas ensures the top quality of its products during international distribution, implementing the NOYNOY Intermodal Transportation program, an innovative Combined Transport System (Intermodal Transport) since September 2009. The initiative is part of the company's environmental management program and aims to reduce the carbon dioxide footprint resulting from the transport of refrigerated products through the use of alternative transport schemes. Dairy products arrive in Patras, Aspropyrgos and Thessaloniki safely, as they are transported under conditions of constant maintenance temperature in suitable state-of-the-art technology cool containers, using the optimal combination of transportation means, ie. by road, by train and by ship that results in lower footprint of carbon dioxide emissions. The chilled products of the company are imported directly from the production locations in Holland and Belgium on a weekly basis summing to 1.300 refrigerated trucks per year. All operations are aligned ensuring the high safety and quality standards of FrieslandCampina leading the company to become a pioneer in the implementation of intermodal transportation solutions in the supply chain of chilled dairy products.
The benefits of the program are value-added for the environment, hence for the of the purpose of sustainability for the people.
2010 - today
Given that almost 30,000 tonnes of refrigerator products are transported annually from the production plants of the FrieslandCampina in Central Europe to Greece, supply chain set the objective to use the best combination of alternative sustainable mode of transport for the products vs the traditional road transport, that would fulfill the objective of "Climate Action". In this context, a pilot transfer with a combination of various means was decided, e.g. train from the Netherlands to Italy, sea transport from Italy to the port of Patras and road transport from Patras to the Distribution Center of our company in Aspropyrgos. Complexity and need for dedicated management was foreseen and thus trained employees were assigned. As the pilot application was a complete success, this combined mode of transport has now been established for at least 50%-60% of refrigerator product imports (58% actual 2020, 55% actual 2019 & 58% actual 2018). Taking into account the transport of shelf products, the volume transported in more environmentally friendly and sustainable reachs appr 80% of the annual total volume transported (82% actual 2020, 78% actual 2019 & 80% actual 2018).
Specifically, refrigerated trucks are being loaded on weekly basis, as from Wednesday till Friday morning, from the loading locations in Holland & Belgium. The trucks are sent to Frankfurt Germany, where the cool chambers are being loaded on the block train that departs every Friday evening. Currently there is one block train departure per week, departing from Frankfurt with final destination Venice Italy. Two days later the train arrives in the port of Venice; the units are being dropped off and a subcontractor is employed so as to load the units in the vessel that departs the same evening. The vessel arrives in the port of Patra’s, a day later (Monday afternoon) and the chambers are trucked to Aspropyrgos warehouse, available for unloading as from Tuesday, early in the morning.
During the journey, the temperature within the chambers is being monitored to reassure that FCH’s transportation standards are maintained. A satellite monitoring system (GPS tracking system) sends alarms in case there is a temperature violation (temperature rises above the expected limits). In such cases, there are appointed locations during the train journey, where service can be provided.
The total lead time of the intermodal way of transportation is 5-6 days, 1-2 days extra in comparison to the conventional road transportation. Conventional road transportation consists of normal refrigerated trucks that are being loaded from the loading locations in Holland & Belgium and they travel by road to Hellas (through central Europe to the Italian ports of Ankona or Venice and then via vessel to Patra Greece).
Year Volume chill Volume C.T.* %
2018 33.258.592 19.404.281 58%
2019 34.232.274 18.899.924 55%
2020 28.003.345 16.317.097 58%
Year Volume** Volume C.T.* %
2018 70.583.467 56.729.156 80%
2019 70.898.274 55.565.924 78%
2020 66.727.345 55.041.097 82%
*Combined Transporation
**Chill and Ambient
Transfer from 5 of the FrieslandCampina product production points in Central Europe to the Aspropyrgos Distribution Centre of Attica in Greece.
FCH cooperates with various transportation related companies for the purpose of the initiative
The employees of the import department of supply chain of FrieslandCampina Hellas.
The total volume transported over the last three years, using combined transport, has led to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions to the environment of around 12,000 tonnes per year, whereas when started in 2009-2010 at pilot level, the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions was 2,266 tonnes.
Year 2018 2019 2020
Reduction of CO2e emissions (Tons) 12.037 12.050 12.012
Intermodal 2.074 1.645 1.519
Sea 9.963 10.405 10.493