Stobart agrees £25m Tesco deal

TRANSPORT group Stobart has won a £25m distribution contract with Tesco.

Stobart, which has its head office in Carlisle and distribution sites across the North West, has secured the deal with Tesco’s new 1.2 million sq ft import centre at Teesport, Middlesbrough.

The contract, worth around £25m a year, involves the movement of non-food items and will start in August.

Stobart’s chief executive Andrew Tinkler said: “Tesco and Stobart started working with each other nearly five years ago and both organisations share a joint vision of maximising load fill to reduce ’empty’ road miles, whilst maintaining exceptional levels of service to customers.

“This major new contract is aligned to Stobart’s multimodal strategy and gives us the potential to increase movements from road to rail, minimising disruption to UK roads and providing a cost effective and environmentally friendly solution.”

Meanwhile Stobart, which employs around 1,000 staff across the North West, is in talks to extend its railfreight operations.

The group is negotiating with rail infrastructure group Network Rail over the possibility of building new terminals on vacant land.

The group launched a railfreight division in 2006 and is planning to move 10% of its freight by rail by 2010.