The Fish Box hire division of CHEP, the pallet and container pooling specialist, has formed a new partnership with the Caley Fisheries Group, a leading provider of services to the UK fishing industry.
Under the collaborative deal, CHEP will take over responsibility to trace, return, repair and condition up to 1,000 boxes a day on behalf of Caley Fisheries, which supplies its boxes to trawlers in the ports of Peterhead, Fraserburgh and Aberdeen in the north east of Scotland.
CHEP Fish Box General Manager, David Morgan, who joined the Peterhead-based business in October after 30 years as a successful trawler skipper and owner, said: "This is the culmination of a very strong existing relationship between our two companies. We've been working closely together for years, and this new partnership is a logical next step for two like-minded organisations that provide a crucial service to the industry."
Karl Brown, General Manager for Caley Fisheries, Peterhead said: "This is a really exciting deal for us, and I'm delighted to be working with CHEP in this way. We're finding that the continuing pressures on costs within our market means that every opportunity has to be taken to maximise the utilisation of assets and production facilities to enable service providers to maintain a low cost offer to the fishing industry. This deal with CHEP enables us to achieve that goal and demonstrates our joint longstanding commitment to the industry."
Both Caley Fisheries and CHEP continue to explore further collaboration opportunities to help consolidate their combined positions through developing additional efficiencies and creating improvements in customer service. CHEP's Mr Morgan said: "I'm absolutely delighted to be working with Caley Fisheries in this way, and I'm looking forward to developing further collaborations with other suppliers, if the synergies are there."
CHEP's Fish Box business conducts close to 1 million movements per annum supporting more than 150 trawlers across the Scottish fishing industry. It has 20 full-time employees working at its sites throughout Scotland.