Success stories: Merkur Frucht uses the new Antos
Business & Logistics
Managing Director Merkur Frucht Michael Hordzewitz talks about the new Antos.
Perfect infrastructure, highest standards. For Merkur’s CEO Michael Hordzewitz, pictured here at the company’s premises in Umkirch near Freiburg, it’s important to be able to concentrate entirely on his core business. “That’s why we need a partner like Mercedes-Benz whom we can trust in all matters relating to truck procurement and operation.”
“We work with perishable foodstuffs. This calls for compliance with highest standards of quality control, hygiene and temperature regulation! So we’ve fitted our new Antos truck-trailer combinations with a cooling unit from TRS. It always operates nice and uniformly independent of the engine load and without a maintenance-intensive drive belt.
Mercedes-Benz carried out the necessary tests with us in everyday operations. More generally too, we have been able to absolutely rely on this partner for many years: we procure the vehicles via Agility financing from Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, which lets us decide at the end of the contract term whether we want to keep the truck, sell it or hand it back at a previously defined residual value.
CharterWay Service Select, which offers basic maintenance cover at a favourable fixed price, serves our planning reliability. The Mercedes-Benz Driver Trainers, who show the drivers in actual operations here locally how to drive even more fuel efficiently, are also a valuable support.”
Michael Hordzewitz, Managing Director Merkur Frucht, Freiburg, Germany
Info Merkur.
Merkur Frucht is a wholesaler, logistics company and service provider rolled into one. Its customers include discounters and star-rated restaurants, retail and hotel chains, as well as other restaurants and caterers. No matter whether it’s bananas, grapes or rare vegetables – Merkur procures goods in Europe and overseas and does the order picking to ensure that customers from southern Germany receive exactly the right mixture they want. And if required, the merchandise already has price tags and is specially packaged and labelled.
In Umkirch near Freiburg, Merkur Frucht runs a state-of-the-art distribution centre. The warehouse sources its power from a geothermal plant. In addition, the energy generated in the banana ripening chamber is stored and rainwater is collected and utilised. The commentary of the company’s CEO, who has occasionally been nicknamed “Mister Banana” in the local press: “We act ecologically because it makes sense economically. Anything other than that would not be sustainable.”
A second big logistics centre is currently being opened in Bavaria, which means that Merkur can expand further in the southeast of Germany. Step by step, the company with its 150 employees is turning its 40-strong fleet of trucks into an all-Antos line-up. “In addition to the low level of fuel consumption, the main strong points of the Antos are the vehicle’s handling advantages: the low entrance, the good manoeuvrability and the Mercedes PowerShift automated transmission,” says Michael Hordzewitz. The bodies and trailers of the articulated combinations with through-loading facility come from Meyer, Göttingen.
Photos: Matthias Aletsee
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