CoolKit has supplied 19 refrigerated vans and made a donation of over £4000 to a national food distribution charity which has seen demand double during the pandemic.
The leading manufacturer of temperature controlled solutions committed to support to FareShare in June 2019 when approached for a single refrigerated van for the charity’s Yorkshire depot and have now supplied 19 refrigerated vans in total.
Mark Beaton, Sales Manager at CoolKit said: “Their request was for a single refrigerated van, which was no problem at all, but I recognised there was a bigger picture here and an opportunity to do our bit.”
After discussion as to how they could help, CoolKit proposed an opportunity to FareShare; to open up a supply partnership for new refrigerated vans, in which CoolKit would make an annual donation based on 1% of the net spend on new vehicle orders that year.
James Persad of FareShare, said: “This was a very generous gesture from CoolKit; we are constantly having to add to or replace refrigerated vans in our national fleet, so recognised the value in this offer.
“We are impressed with the consistency and quality of the CoolKit refrigerated vans; they have a good payload, enabling us to deliver more food supplies on each journey.”
From the end of June 2019 to March 2020, FareShare ordered 14 Peugeot Boxer refrigerated vans from CoolKit, offering the lightest conversion on the market.
The pandemic then took hold and demand doubled – seeing FareShare deliver an average of almost two million meals a week to those at risk of hunger through 11,000 frontline charities across the UK.
They made an urgent request to CoolKit to supply two new refrigerated vans to help meet this unprecedented demand.
Glenn McCulley, CoolKit’s sales and marketing director said: “FareShare is a valued customer and we knew how vital it was for them to expand their fleet during the pandemic.
“But we had an issue; most of our supply chain partners had closed their doors and we weren’t able to register the vehicles they required.
“We certainly didn’t wish to leave them high and dry, so came up with a solution to loan them our own refrigerated vans until movement within the manufacturing sector enabled us to get on with the build of their own vehicles.”
James added: “We are working extremely hard to deliver vital food supplies to those in need, so these refrigerated vans play an extremely important role in ensuring that the food reaches people safely. We are very grateful to CoolKit for their support and generous donation at this difficult time.”
FareShare have since received their own two vehicles and have ordered three more as demand continues to peak, which makes 19 in total. The refrigerated vans have enabled food to be delivered safely to all those in need across the country.
In the terms of the agreement, this means a total donation of £4,280 will be made from CoolKit to FareShare this month and they would like to maintain this agreement long term to ensure further donations in the future.
