Hays Asset Control Solutions has designed a new mushroom crate specifically for Sainsbury's.

Hays, which recently signed a seven-year, multi-million pound deal with the retailer, is one of Europe's leading providers of retail logistics services, providing returnable transit packaging and associated services such as crate management and cleaning.

Taking 18 months to research and develop, the tough polypropylene crate has completed an eight-week trial with two mushroom suppliers and is now being rolled out to all of the company's mushroom suppliers.

Sainsbury's is to dispense with all its previous high-impact styrene plastic loose mushroom trays. The old-style trays are designed for a single trip and are therefore subject to environmental issues regarding their disposal.

Andrew Whitehead, project manager at Sainsbury's, said: 'To maintain our position as one of the leading supermarkets in the UK, we have to be innovative in all areas of our business and this new Hays create is helping us in this respect. The crate gives us far greater stacking precision, allowing an additional 39kg of mushrooms on every pallet, and is far more durable, the advantages of which are two fold.

'Firstly, from our customers' point of view, it means the produce remains secure during transit and is less likely to be damaged. Secondly, the crates can be re-used week-in, week-out which is better from an environmental point of view.' Hay's business development manager, Russell Smith, added: 'We already provide crates to Sainsbury's for its other fresh produce and we felt we could improve on the current industry standard for loose mushrooms.

'It has taken 18 months to get the crate from concept to the completion of the recent trial and we now have a crate that makes good commercial sense from both the point of view of Sainsbury's and its customers.' As part of the deal, Sainsbury's will rent a pool of mushroom crates from Hays. After each use the trays are returned to one of Hay's washing units, and then transferred to Sainsbury's regional distribution centre to be filled and delivered to stores.

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