Zeus eliminates empty legs for Whirlpool and Kraft Heinz

At Zeus we strive to deliver measurable advances in sustainability for our customers one way or another. 

If we cannot convince customers to use our low carbon multimodal solution (and we understand that it cannot be applied to every delivery lane), or use renewable diesel, there are still innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

We recently started working with well-known consumer goods manufacturer Whirlpool and the fifth-largest food and beverage company in the world, The Kraft Heinz Company. 

During the tender process, we saw that we could offer a unique approach, that we internally call 'triangulation', where we ensure that no truck runs empty. 

Why reducing empty journeys is still important today

In the EU, it is estimated that in 2021 one fifth (20.2%) of road freight journeys were performed by empty vehicles, while in the UK, from June 2021 – June 2022, 30% of HGVs travelled empty, accounting for some 5,884 million kilometres in total. That's a tremendous amount of wasted opportunity. 

For Whirlpool and Kraft Heinz, we mapped out the routes, and have developed a complete transport route-matching for both companies, eliminating empty truck journeys completely and reducing carbon emissions by an estimated 22% (we are actively tracking emissions for the journeys and will be able to report the exact savings to our customers).

The impact of this new approach

Zeus will be initially handling transport routes for Whirlpool from Italy to France, Germany, The Netherlands, and the UK. Through triangulation and matching all return journeys to other clients, mainly Kraft Heinz, this will eliminate around 1200 empty truck journeys covering more than 800,000 kilometres. This is an equivalent saving of around 600 tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum.

This new arrangement with Whirlpool and Kraft-Heinz ensures that they will gain easy access to hard-to-find mega and jumbo trailers, benefit from our proprietary freight management technology, while achieving optimal results with no empty journeys, thereby greatly reducing carbon emissions.

Whirlpool achieved approximately 25% greenhouse gas emissions reduction in Scopes 1 and 2 in 2022 according to their 2022 Sustainability Report. Meanwhile, The Kraft Heinz Company is recognised as a socially responsible global food company.

Interested in saving emissions but without spending more? We can help.

As Chief Commercial Officer at Zeus, our core driving focus is to apply emissions reductions, while delivering new efficiencies and reliability through every and any available avenue to our clients.

This new arrangement with Whirlpool and Kraft-Heinz ensures that they will gain easy access to hard-to-find mega and jumbo trailers, benefit from our proprietary freight management technology, while achieving optimal results with no empty journeys, thereby greatly reducing carbon emissions.

In the near future, we plan to build on these relationships and provide renewable diesel and zero-emissions solutions as it becomes more viable in this context.