Australia's largest privately owned food-service distributor is now using Toyota Material Handling Australia (TMHA) forklifts across its national networks of warehouses.
TMHA's agreement with PFD Food Services has seen the rollout of new forklifts across 58 sites nationally with the company taking delivery of approximately 300 forklifts - around 85 per cent of the PFD fleet.
TMHA worked closely with PFD to help develop a number of forklifts specifically for designed for their individual requirements - notably operating in minus 25-degree environments.
TMHA undertook detailed research and analysis of PFD sites and then consulted with them in the development of products to best suit the freezer conditions.
PFD's National Fleet manager Steve Wright said: "Numerous factors led to the contract with TMHA A little over a year ago, TMHA ordered in some equipment for us to trial.
"The specification of the trial forklifts were such that we could easily evaluate the units in our sites and we then worked with TMHA on evaluating and further developing the standard features on the units as well as a few other additional options that were available.
"This development work is part of the reason why the products have performed so well, because they were tailored to suit us.
"The significant improvements we saw were in the steering and traction of the Raymond Reach truck, which is obviously very important when working in slippery minus 25-degree conditions.
"We were also impressed by the professionalism TMHA displayed. They understood that we had been with our current supplier for many years and the decision to change was not one that we would take lightly."
"The region-service capability and coverage of TMHA was a key component for us," Mr Wright added.
Mr Wright said TMHA's Raymond brand forklifts, which comprise the majority of the PFD fleet, had made a positive difference to operations in the company's warehouses.
PFD's involvement with the One Toyota family, which includes the Toyota Motor Corporation Group, Hino Trucks, Lexus and Toyota Financial services, is an added benefit of the arrangement with TMHA.
"It's not something we considered at first, because we wanted to make sure we had the best product and service for our business. But we certainly see great value in a relationship with Toyota across all parts of our business." Mr Wright said.
PFD Rises to Custom-Designed Toyota Forklifts