June 2022

DB Schenker orders first fuel-cell powered trucks

Posted on 28 June, 2022 by Keith McKinley

DB Schenker has revealed its ambitions to gradually build up a fuel-cell electric vehicle (FCEV) fleet powered by hydrogen in cooperation with hylane, a rental start-up that is part of DEVK and which specialises in providing comprehensive hydrogen solutions in the logistics sector.

In June, DB Schenker paid a visit to view its first fuel cell truck in Groningen, Netherlands on the premises of Hyzon, a manufacturer of hydrogen-powered trucks. The vehicle will be handed over by hylane to DB Schenker by the end of 2022.

“I´m grateful to see the progress we are now making towards testing a hydrogen powered vehicle for linehaul transportation, which will be an important step on our journey towards carbon-neutral road transportation,” says Helmut Schweighofer, CEO of DB Schenker Europe.

“We are proud to support DB Schenker’s pioneering work with our trucks,” says Sara Schiffer, Managing Director of hylane. “The partnership with DB Schenker demonstrates that hylane meets the high standards leading companies require for sustainable transport. Together, we will continue to work on advancing the use of hydrogen trucks in Europe.”

DEVK/hylane and DB Schenker started their collaboration almost two years ago. Both companies understand the importance of hydrogen for the transformation of the transport sector and therefore combined their strengths in order to move forward in this regard.

“In addition to a 360° rental concept, the aim of the collaboration is to develop a swap-body truck-trailer combination to carry our standard swap-body type with a length of 7,820mm,” says Wolfgang Janda, Executive Vice President, Head of Network & Linehaul Management at DB Schenker. “This is new in the market and will allow us to decarbonise without any loss of efficiency in our land transport network.”

Fuel-cell powered trucks offer several advantages in long-distance transport as compared to battery-electric vehicles: The maximum payload is higher, the range is greater, and the refuelling process comparable to diesel.

DB Schenker plans to start field tests on a few lanes with selected customers in the beginning of 2023. It also intends to upscale and commercialise operations beginning in Q3 2023, whereby the progress made here will depend on factors such as hydrogen infrastructure and market acceptance. DB Schenker, together with its carriers, aims to be carbon-neutral by 2040. The use of green hydrogen (hydrogen produced using renewable energy sources) is an essential element of the company’s decarbonisation strategy.

Cleveland Containers secures investment from LDC

Posted on 28 June, 202229 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Cleveland Containers, a leading UK supplier of shipping containers, has secured a minority investment from leading mid-market private equity firm LDC to support the next stage of its growth journey.

Headquartered in Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland Containers is led by husband-and-wife Johnathan and Jane Bulmer. It specialises in the sale and hire of shipping containers and site accommodation units. The company supplies over 4,500 customers including national housebuilders, construction firms, high street retailers and individuals.

Ranging from 6ft to 45ft in size, Cleveland Containers’ new and used shipping containers are supplied for multiple applications, including everything from storage units to office space and street food vendors to site canteens. This includes delivering bespoke container conversions for projects such as the popular food and drink venue STACK Seaburn in Sunderland, as well as containers for theme park resorts Gulliver’s Valley in Rotherham and the Peak District’s Gulliver’s Kingdom. The business has a network of 15 depots and currently delivers more than 400 containers a week to its customers across the UK.

Cleveland Containers is a market leader in its sector and has grown quickly, with revenues more than trebling in the last four years from £18m in 2019 to £60m in the current year. The business currently employs more than 65 people.

LDC is backing the existing management team to support their growth plan and further enhance Cleveland Containers’ sales and rental offering, while also creating career opportunities for new and existing employees.

To support the next stage of its journey, Andrew Thompson, former Managing Director of portable site accommodation and storage container rental provider Mobile Mini, has been appointed as Chief Operating Officer. Jon Hurford, former Finance Director at O’Brien Waste Recycling Solutions, has also joined the business as Chief Financial Officer and Richard Tredwin, former CEO of SRL Traffic Systems, has been appointed as Non-Executive Chair.

The investment was led by Gareth Marshall, Partner and Head of LDC in the North East, and Investment Manager Naomi McDiarmid, both of whom will also join the board.

Johnathan Bulmer, Managing Director of Cleveland Containers, said: “I’m really proud of everyone at Cleveland Containers. The team has worked tirelessly to cement our market leading position and with LDC’s support we are now in a position to strengthen our business further and welcome more people into our fun and fast-growing business.

“As soon as we met Gareth and Naomi at LDC, we knew that LDC was the right partner to support our growth plans. They have helped to bring in new experience and perspectives to our business, and it’s a real benefit that their Newcastle office is only a short distance away. We feel well supported to continue our growth from our base here in the North East.”

Gareth Marshall, Partner and Head of LDC in the North East, added: “Johnathan, Jane and the team at Cleveland Containers’ commitment to customer service has been key to their growth. As a result of their efforts and creativity, we’re seeing an increasingly innovative use of containers across the UK. We’re looking forward to helping the business to bring the right container, site accommodation and modular turnkey solutions to even more customers.”

LDC has a strong heritage of supporting the growth of businesses within the logistics and warehousing sector. The private equity firm has successfully backed the nationwide growth plans of independent home delivery company Panther Logistics, including creating 300 new jobs and tripling profits, and supported pallet distribution services provider The Pallet Network (TPN) for ten years – helping the business to treble revenue, open new sites and make complementary acquisitions in the process.

Cleveland Containers secures investment from LDC

Posted on 28 June, 2022 by David Priestman

The investment was led by Gareth Marshall, Partner and Head of LDC in the North East, and Investment Manager Naomi McDiarmid, both of whom will also join the board.

Shippeo and Everysens form strategic partnership

Posted on 27 June, 2022 by David Priestman

Shippeo, a leading provider of global and multimodal shipment visibility, has partnered with Everysens, a leader in rail and intermodal transport management systems, to enhance their multimodal transport visibility offering. Everysens will provide Shippeo with the most reliable rail ETA available on the market, based on real-time data from satellite tracking and rail operators.

The two-way partnership allows Everysens to also benefit from Shippeo’s large network of road and ocean carriers, providing high quality shipment tracking data to rail and intermodal shippers and their customers. By sharing container events for ocean shipments, as well as highly accurate and reliable road freight ETAs, Everysens can better anticipate impacts on rail logistics.

In turn, Shippeo receives a stream of rail events from Everysens, including ETAs, GPS positions and loading statuses. Everysens provides ETAs for both full trains and single wagons; a unique capability within the market. The improved visibility across all types of rail transport will be available globally for Shippeo customers. In addition, Everysens covers the full transport processes, including tendering, collaborative smart planning, freight letters and CO2 emissions.

By integrating their respective shipment ETAs, both companies are able to offer their customers improved end-to-end visibility in a single offering, creating new opportunities for supply chain convergence and benefitting shippers with a higher level of supply chain transparency and optimised logistics flows.

“As shippers face more and more supply chain challenges around the world as a result of disruptive global events, they want to know when their shipments will reach their final destination,” explains Lucien Besse, COO and Co-founder at Shippeo. “With sustainability playing an increasingly important role in transportation management, rail is becoming a popular means of intermodal transport. However, visibility over rail shipments has not been easy for shippers to achieve. The partnership between Shippeo and Everysens increases shippers’ trust in rail and multimodal deliveries, providing them with critical monitoring milestones, as well as the ability to measure and improve their processes.”

“Rail is already an important part of multimodal logistics. Effects of the EU Green Deal are quickly positioning rail further as the future of freight,” says Dr. Youness Lemrabet, CEO and Founder of Everysens. “The target is clear: 30% modal share for rail by 2030, with an estimated impact of 290 million tonnes CO2 saved. To reach this, rail needs newcomers, for whom intermodal is the primary entry point. With this partnership, we can connect the dots between rail and first- and last-mile transport modes, to make modal shift truly happen.”

Shippeo and Everysens form strategic partnership

Posted on 27 June, 202229 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Shypple expands management team

Posted on 27 June, 202231 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Shypple is adding two new members to its management team with immediate effect. The digital forwarder has appointed Patrick Weissert as Chief Product Officer (CPO) and René van Rappard as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the organisation. With this, Shypple takes a new step in realising its international growth ambitions and its aspirations to innovate the traditional global trade market.

Weissert has been building and managing tech products and tech product teams since the late 1990s. He has worked at Vodafone, Nokia/HERE and German unicorn Adjust, among others, and has founded several start-ups, including German Autolabs. At Shypple, Weissert is responsible for further innovating and strategically deploying the technology and scaling up the team.

“When building an AI assistant device for drivers with German Autolabs, which we manufactured in Malaysia, shipped to Europe and US and sold through a variety of online and shop based retailers, I got a glimpse into the arcane processes and tools used in the freight forwarding industry,” said Weissert. “As one of the early movers in this space Shypple is uniquely positioned to build one of the leading digital freight platforms, helping our customers to transform their supply chains with state-of-the-art booking, visibility, communication and collaboration capabilities.”

Van Rappard previously worked at McKinsey, and at tech scale-ups Catawiki and OneFit/Urban Sports Club. At Shypple he leads the finance team and is responsible for identifying new investors and acquisition targets. He is deliberately making a move to a large, traditional industry that is finally seeing a lot of technological innovation.

“The global supply chain has come under a lot of stress over the past two years. This has accelerated the rate of industry innovation and Shypple is one the leading companies driving this change,” said van Rappard. “Once new customers start using our digital platform and visibility features, they tend to show great loyalty and steadily increase the volumes that they ship with us. This also creates a great opportunity for synergetic M&A. By joining forces with traditional freight forwarders, we can quickly onboard their customers onto our platform and dramatically improve those customers‘ experience. Last year, Shypple made its first acquisition, and we now receive much inbound interest in potential new business combinations.”

“Attracting Patrick and René is a further validation of our status as a prominent technology scaleup,” said Jarell Habets, CEO and founder of Shypple. “We are thrilled to add these talents to the management team, accelerating our international growth and taking giant steps to innovate the traditional freight transportation market.”

The expansion of the management team with Weissert and Van Rappard follows several months after the addition of Vakis Rigas as Vice President of Marketing. Rigas previously built up Typeform’s Product Marketing department and was Global Product Lead at Google. He is responsible for the strategic growth and brand positioning of Shypple.

Shypple expands management team

Posted on 27 June, 2022 by David Priestman

First all-electric terminal tractor arrives at British port

Posted on 27 June, 202229 July, 2025 by Keith McKinley

DP World has announced the arrival of the first ever all-electric terminal tractor at a British port in a significant step forward in greening the UK logistics sector.

The Terberg YT203-EV terminal tractor which is entering service at London Gateway will primarily be used for transporting goods the two mile distance from the quayside to a distribution facility at the adjacent logistics park, a prime example of the trend towards port-centric logistics. DP World – the leading provider of smart logistics solutions, helping trade flow across the globe – plans to make its entire fleet of 11 terminal tractors at London Gateway all-electric in the near future.

Ernst Schulze, UK Chief Executive at DP World, said: “We are delighted that Britain’s first all-electric terminal tractor is now in service at London Gateway port, as we continue to play our part in improving local air quality and helping the UK meet its target of delivering the Net Zero 2050 policy.

“We have a clear responsibility to reduce the impact of our operations and to offer customers solutions that support their own sustainability journeys. The close proximity of London Gateway to Europe’s largest consumer market gives us a natural advantage, while our investment in rail interconnectivity at both our hubs eases congestion on the roads, with the emphasis on rail across both our UK ports taking 300,000 trucks off the roads each year.”

Earlier this month DP World announced that its container terminal at Southampton had become the first in Britain to eliminate fossil diesel from its operations entirely. By transitioning to Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) net carbon dioxide emissions have been cut by more than 80%.

Maha AlQattan, Group Chief People & Sustainability Officer, said: “We believe in protecting our people and our planet through world-class environmental standards and are delighted that our UK operation is at the forefront of this drive. Our sustainability strategy ‘Our World, Our Future’ is woven into everything we do supporting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals across safety, climate change, security, community engagement, people development, ethics and wellbeing.”

The first all-electric terminal tractor at a British port is one part of DP World’s commitment to improving and expanding the nation’s trading infrastructure in the most sustainable way possible. The £300m sum which it is investing to build the new fourth berth at London Gateway – which could be 100% electric when it is completed in 2024 – builds on the £2bn investment DP World has made in Britain over the last decade.

First all-electric terminal tractor arrives at British port

Posted on 27 June, 202229 July, 2025 by David Priestman

DP World has announced the arrival of the first ever all-electric terminal tractor at a British port in a significant step forward in greening the UK logistics sector.

Start-ups selected to join Wincanton’s W² Labs programme

Posted on 27 June, 2022 by David Priestman

Wincanton, a leading supply chain partner for UK business, has announced the five finalists from around the world to take part in its 2022 W² Labs programme. Those selected following the recent Pitch Day will receive mentorship from Wincanton’s Senior Management Team, with the chance to trial their solution in a live environment.

First launched in 2017, the W² Labs programme is open to early-stage businesses who are invited to pitch proposals which use digitalisation to drive change across supply chains. The programme is designed to accelerate innovation, discover emerging ideas and tackle some of the industry’s toughest challenges and is an example of Wincanton’s ambition to deliver truly innovative supply chain solutions.

This year’s programme invited 15 start-ups to pitch with a range of forward looking technologies and solutions in the following areas:

Digital Fulfilment: solutions to revolutionise modern-day fulfilment
Environment, social and governance (ESG): long-term sustainable supply chain solutions
Wildcard: technology and robotics to transform supply chains

As decided by the judging panel, the final 5 are:

Find & Order (digital fulfilment): Find & Order, based in France, uses its interactive mapping editor and algorithms to optimise picking operations in warehouses and stores, achieving increased product collection efficiency of up to 20%.

Nomagic (digital fulfilment): Nomagic, based in Poland, provides smart pick and place robots to eliminate labour intensive tasks in eCommerce and retail warehouses, while reducing cost per pick.

Automedi (ESG): Automedi, based in Manchester, UK, makes functional products and services out of waste plastics, cutting out up to 98% of the CO2 of conventional supply chains by radically reducing the energy needed to manufacture and transport goods long haul.

Navflex Inc (Wildcard – technology and robotics): Navflex, based in the US, has developed technology that autonomously loads and unloads any trailer, container or box truck with plug-and-play autonomous mobile robot (AMR) technology that do not require infrastructure changes. The US-based business promises to increase safety and productivity while reducing product damage.

Pick8ship Technology AG (Wildcard – technology and robotics): Pick8ship Technology AG, based in Switzerland, has developed a robotics fulfilment solution for managing storage, picking, sorting and shipping, using a single, fast, modular system. The technology reduces operating costs by 40-60%. Read more:

Paul Durkin, Chief Customer and Innovation Officer at Wincanton, and member of the judging panel, commented: “This year’s event was one of Wincanton’s most compelling W² Pitch Days to date. We saw a broad range of ideas and innovations which made judging the competition an exciting challenging.

“This was the first time we’ve hosted the event at our new W² Innovation Centre in The WEB, Wincanton’s eFulfilment centre in Rockingham. We were thrilled to host participants, customers and colleagues both in-person and remotely, making this year’s event a truly hybrid and inclusive experience.

“We look forward to collaborating with the start-ups, supporting them as they develop innovative supply chain solutions for the future.”

This year’s W² Labs is delivered in partnership with global corporation innovation specialist, L Marks.

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