What do the British milkman and the German mail carrier have in common? Answer: Both are an institution in their respective countries, and both travel by all-electric StreetScooter.
The UK home delivery business Milk & More has now placed an initial order for 200 of these electric vehicles, which are produced by the Deutsche Post subsidiary StreetScooter and will be put to use in the UK immediately. In doing so, Milk & More aims to make the delivery of milk and other fresh produce – which normally takes place at night or in the early hours of the morning – quieter and more environmentally friendly. The StreetScooter is also in keeping with the tradition of British milkmen, who have used electric vehicles for their deliveries since 1930.
“We wanted to make this unique tradition relevant again to the requirements of today’s customers,” says Patrick Müller, Managing Director of Milk & More. “In order to do this, we need a local product portfolio, new IT systems as well as reliable, quiet and environmentally friendly vehicles. In the StreetScooter, we have found the ideal vehicle for our needs.”
“As a leading innovator, we are also helping customers to take innovative paths in their own industry,” says Jürgen Gerdes, Board Member Corporate Incubations at Deutsche Post DHL Group and responsible for the StreetScooter. “In this way, we achieve sustainable success together.”
The British milkman has enjoyed a resurgence in recent months. Social awareness about environmental issues has changed significantly. More and more customers in the United Kingdom are prepared to pay a premium for regionally sourced products that are packaged in an eco-friendly way. It goes without saying that home deliveries must also be made in environmentally friendly electric vehicles. In order to keep pace with these developments, Müller – which has been active in the UK market since 1987 – decided two years ago to acquire and modernize the United Kingdom’s largest remaining milk-delivery business, Milk & More, with more than 2,000 employees.
Milk & More has ordered the Work L Box model with a box-type van body that is similar to that used for postal deliveries in Germany. Its usable box volume is 8 cubic meters and the load compartment is also refrigerated to keep the milk and fresh produce chilled. Even though people drive on the left-hand side of the road in the United Kingdom, Milk & More has taken special care to ensure that the electric vehicles are left-hand drives. This is to provide greater safety to the driver, who can then get out of the vehicle, or load and unload, on the sidewalk side of the street.
In addition, StreetScooter GmbH is making its charging management expertise available to Milk & More. With the help of the Cloud-based charging management system developed by StreetScooter GmbH, the electric vehicles can be efficiently charged one after the other. The vehicle has already been approved for road transport in the United Kingdom.
Milk & More makes more than 1.5 million deliveries to over 500,000 households in the United Kingdom each week. Besides offering its range of about 200 local products, Milk & More each year produces and delivers more than 100 million “pints” – the traditional glass milk bottles that have existed for more than 150 years and have achieved cult status with many customers. The bottles are collected by the milkman after use before they are cleaned and re-used – on average 25 times.
