Delivering Joy: Fortnum & Mason’s Electric Van Experience

At Fortnum & Mason, we offer a concierge service to in-store customers — a free delivery service to specified London postcode areas. We were using a diesel-powered Ford Transit van, which, to be honest, was not in line with our sustainability objectives. Our collaboration with Ford Pro to move to a fully electric refrigerated van has been an enormous success, and the challenging brief of designing a refrigeration unit that doesn’t prevent us from using underground parking in central London was extremely well executed. The icing on the cake for our launch at the Commercial Vehicle Show last year was the purchase of a personalised registration plate, which absolutely fits our mantra of bringing joy with every delivery: FM25 JOY.

Our Journey

Our converted E-Transit Custom was launched at the Commercial Vehicle Show, where it stole the show, certainly in the sustainability section, as it’s a striking looking van with the Eau de Nil matt wrap and undermounted condenser. We were keen to highlight the Ford Pro and Coolkit collaborations on the back doors as we really see this as a partnership that we want to take to another level. The van has been on the road for 10 months now and has never skipped a beat. The drivers have nothing but praise, where maybe some skepticism may have existed before.

It is parked up each night in the China Town region of London, in a secure underground parking bay, complete with an electric vehicle charging point, so our driver gets the train into London and starts his day fully charged. So green travel to the van and green travel in the van. Perfect.

A typical start to their day is with a collection of post to Piccadilly, then loading up with available customer orders, as well as transporting fresh food to our London satellite stores, at The Royal Exchange and St Pancras station. Our drivers often feel like celebrities and tell stories of tourists asking for photos of the van and asking for selfies. I am a bit concerned as they don’t have Equity cards, but we’ll ride our luck a bit longer… The van does venture out of London to support our busy events schedule over the summer months, taking fresh hampers to premium goods customers.

Supporting Growth

We are keen to expand the use of the van for moving hospitality fresh food to our new store in Bicester, as well as moving frozen beef wellingtons to our Depot in Corby. These are made by our chefs in Piccadilly, London, and we send them to our fulfilment centre in Corby for e-commerce deliveries. (If you have never tried a Fortnum & Mason’s beef wellington, you are truly missing out on a culinary delight). Fortnum & Mason has been delivering in London since 1707, when the deliveries were made with a horse and carriage. Maybe things have not changed as much as we think, because the average speed is roughly the same, at around 4-5 mph.

What we have proven beyond doubt is that electric vans do work in city centres, and the fact we have a refrigerated van under 2 metres in height should give other potential customers real confidence to make the transition. All of us at Fortnum & Mason love our van, our customers love the van, and our drivers love the van.

Thank you, Ford, for making this possible.

Gordon Clark is Transport Carrier Manager, Logistics, at Fortnum & Mason.