Discount retailer Lidl UK has selected IFCO's nesting trays for meat, poultry, and packaged seafood shipments.
Under the five-year deal, IFCO will supply the trays 16 million trays in the first year.
The company will increase the number of trays supplied every year after the initial year.
The financial aspects of the agreement haven’t been disclosed by the concerned parties.
IFCO CEO Wolfgang Orgeldinger said: “IFCO is delighted to offer our scale and solutions to support leading grocery retailers like Lidl.
“By utilizing pooled, reusable trays for meat, poultry, and seafood, both Lidl and their suppliers can reap the benefits of a hygienic, environmentally-friendly, and cost-efficient fresh supply chain.”
The two companies had worked together to ensure the transition of moving Lidl products into the IFCO trays, 10 weeks after their first tender talks.
Lidl logistics manager Matthew Wallis said: “At Lidl we continuously seek opportunities to improve our supply chain and have determined using a large, open pool of trays for all of our meat and poultry lines would drive benefits both internally and to our suppliers.
“After a rigorous tender process, we selected IFCO because of their demonstrated speed and scalability to support our growth.”
A subsidiary of Australian logistics company Brambles Group, IFCO operates a pool of over 270 million Reusable Plastic Containers (RPCs) in several countries.
Every year, the RPCs are used for more than 1.4 billion shipments from suppliers of fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, bread, meat, poultry, seafood along with other items to grocery retailers.
