Mars and DHL announce plans for £350m sustainable logistics initiative

The deal will see two state-of-the-art warehouses built in East London and Midlands partly powered by on-site solar.

Mars has teamed up with delivery giant DHL to invest £350m in two state of the art facilities, in a move the firms estimate could remove one million miles per year from the roads.

The new sites, based in the Midlands and East London, have been designed with sustainability at front of mind; the project will reduce Mars’ outbound logistics carbon footprint in the UK by 7.7%.

Tim Walker, Supply Chain Director at Mars UK said: “Our partnership with DHL will deliver a world class logistics operation that is sustainable, smart and agile. What is good for our business is also good for the planet. This project is a meaningful step in our sustainability journey as we look to create the world we want tomorrow – which we know starts with how we do business today.”

Mars UK transport over 1.2 million pallets of their products every year. While removing a million miles a year from roads, the operation, called Project Gateway, will also increase warehousing capacity by over 50%.

The two purpose-built depots, based in ‘East Midlands Gateway’ and ‘London Thames Gateway’, will be operational in the spring of 2022 and 2023.

With a combined square footage of over a million feet and they will both have state of the art high bay facilities which include innovative automated pallet storage. 

Managing Director, Jim Hartshorne, for Retail & Consumer & Ireland at DHL Supply Chain sees this extending their global partnership between the two companies. He believes their ‘shared environmental commitments’ are supported by this investment and will create long term, exciting jobs in both of these communities.

“This project will be the foundation of the UK logistics chain for Mars for many years to come and we are incredibly proud to be selected to lead in this project.”