One of Australia’s largest fresh fruit producers and marketers has refreshed its national fleet of Toyota Material Handling Australia (TMHA) forklifts and pallet jacks, continuing a strong working relationship which goes back over 30 years.
Premier Fresh Australia recently signed up to its second long-term lease deal with TMHA for its fleet of over 120 machines spread across the country, which is used to pack and transport a wide variety of fresh fruit and vegetables grown and sold all over Australia.
Toyota forklifts are renowned for their quality, durability and reliability, which was a key factor for Premier Fresh Australia wanting to renew their contract, according to executive general manager operations and farming Stephen Millar.
“They’re very robust units, they’re very reliable, we find them to be pretty efficient with usage as well, they meet the mark,” Mr Millar said.
“I think where we operate, the conditions that we operate, we need something that can handle the climate we operate in, and we find that these ones are basically bulletproof. So that’s one of the main drawcards for them.”
With roughly 450 employees nationally, the 100 per cent Australian owned Premier Fresh Australia operates sites across the country, from banana farms in Humpty Doo, Innisfail and Mission Beach, a gourmet tomato warehouse in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley, and warehouses and market trading floors in many of Australia’s capital cities.
Premier Fresh Australia’s vast footprint requires its material handling equipment to keep the logistics side of the business running seamlessly and reliably, whether in the hot and humid regional Queensland or in the cold produce markets of metro Melbourne.
A key part of that equation is Toyota’s vast service network and team of knowledgeable service forklift technicians, who work hard to ensure Premier Fresh Australia’s fleet minimises downtime.
“One of the reasons we like dealing with Toyota is we’re spread out across Australia, some of the areas are pretty remote,” Mr Millar said.
“They’ve got service agreements with us in each of those locations where we have the routine maintenance take place.
“So we ensure the forklifts and the equipment have maximum uptime available to use, so we invest in that regular maintenance and they’re able to provide that to us in each of those locations, and in the event that you have an unforeseen, unplanned service required, their turnaround times are quite prompt and the service arms of the business have always been quite professional.
“They know what they’re doing – they come out, they handle it well and they understand our business well enough to know how urgent those forks are to be back and up and running. They’re very good at what they do.”
One particular servicing advantage for TMHA is having a service centre located inside Melbourne Market, home to a 12,500-square-metre trading floor where Premier Fresh Australia wholesales a large amount of its fresh fruit and vegetables.
TMHA area sales manager Brad White, who is the main point of contact for Premier Fresh Australia, explained the advantage of an on-site service centre.
“We’ve got the advantage in the Melbourne market of having a service centre in there as well.,” he said.
“They bring their forklifts in for a service during the day and we drop them back – it works in well.”
The new 120-strong fleet for Premier Fresh contains a mix of primarily LPG counterbalance forklifts, as well as battery-electric forklifts and electric pallet jacks for a wide range of loading and transport uses.
For the new order, Mr White and his TMHA team helped Mr Millar and Premier Fresh Australia spec up a number of their machines to suit their requirements, including safety lights and even an AI-based safety system being trialled on a small number of units.
“We add some bells and whistles to them as well, some safety features like proximity lights,” Mr Millar said.
“On some of them we’ve also put in some AI proximity sensors to try and establish how close forks will get to people and then try to slow them down. We’re putting some smarts on it so they can be as safe as they can be – we’re doing that trial on about 15 forks.”
Mr Millar went on to say that the help provided by Mr White and his team has been particularly helpful to Premier Fresh Australia.
“He’s been very good, very professional”, he said. He’s been in the business for a long time so he knows the product quite well, and he knows our business well.
“He sees what we do and has been able to pick the right units and right fleet for us based on what he knows, so that always helps.”