Costa Logistics operates temperature controlled and perishable distribution centres in Australia, South Africa and China. Each year these centres move more than $2 billion of product worldwide, involving more than 150 million individual units.

The Costa Distribution Centre in Victoria distributes fresh and perishable produce to 196 Coles supermarkets in Victoria from its purpose built facility. The centre recieves, picks, packs and then loads the stock onto transport for delivery throughout the state. This high velocity operation handles up to 12,000 inbound and 12,000 outbound pallets every week and works 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

They have recently renewed their materials handling contract with Linde Australia on the strength of their previous experience with Linde equipment. Of the reasons to choose Linde, Tavita Sao, Costa National Logistics Managers says, “Linde really gave us no reason to tender. We had been with Linde for 7 years and had no hesitation on choosing them once again. We had dabbled with other brands but felt that Linde lift trucks give us greater operator performance through their highly ergonomic designs - and for us, performance is the key. All backed by a truly comprehensive service package.”

Costa currently use around 80 separate pieces of Linde equipment including EWR / 60 ride-on pallet movers, N20 order pickers and E20 counter balanced forklifts. In line with industry standards, these are all electric powered to prevent any exhaust contamination to the fresh produce. Each of these material handling units allows for greater ease of use through their ergonomic design features. One of the most impressive of these design features is the dual pedal operation. This is unique to Linde forklifts and allows the operator to move forward bu pushing the right pedal down, and then reverse simply by pushing the left pedal down. A brake pedal can also be used but it is rarely required. The placement of hand controls and the driver’s seating position were also regarded to be superior to those of other lift trucks. Indeed staff from Costa operation in another state were familiar with another brand of lift truck, yet were pleasantly surprised by the superior comfort and ease of use of the Linde vehicles.