26


Issue 3 2013


///ITALY Beating a path Its


across the Brenner politics,


geography and


economics may be more tangled than a plate of spaghetti but Italy is a major market for many. Historically, the north has been well-served from the UK, the south less so, but that is beginning to change.


Pall-Ex Italia grows in a cold climate


Pall-Ex Italia – the Italian version of the well-known UK pallet network – says its business is growing but it is a tough market. “On average, we are handling around 1,600 pallets a night, and we’re growing on average by around 15-20% a year” says Pall-Ex Italia managing director Melissa Alberti. That


though has to be set


albeit with a little tweaking to suit the circumstances of this long and mountainous country, which moreover also includes two sizeable offshore islands in Sardinia and Sicily. From the outset, there were two hubs – one about 60km from Milan and the other in the Naples region. Three more sub-hubs were subsequently


slog to attract hauliers at first. “However, now that we have got the network running, we have something to show,” she explains. “We have now got 56 members; the ideal number would by between 60 and 65 so we are getting close to that.” Around five members have gone out of business or leſt the network, which has occasionally leſt remaining members with gaps to fill. The haulage industry hasn’t been immune from Italy’s economic woes, of course, with around 15-30 operators going out of business every month. There is a fair bit of competition


in the market, not only from the couple of other start-up pallet networks but also from some of the big established hauliers who have also moved into the pallet market. This has had the inevitable effect of depressing prices. But above all, it is the state of


against a target of around 2,500 pallets a night anticipated when the Italian market was first set up in 2009. “It has been a very, very hard crisis, and Italy has been one of the hardest-hit countries in Europe” Alberti explains. “So it’s growing, though not by as much as originally expected” - although the 12% increase seen in the first three months of 2013 is encouraging. Like its UK counterpart, Pall-Ex


Italia offers nationwide delivery across the whole country, as well as international services,


opened, in Verona, Florence and Ancona. While the network covers the


whole country, in fact, around 70% of Pall-Ex Italia’s traffic is across the top of the country, from North- west to North-east or vice-versa and only around 20% is between north and south. “Most of the industry is in the North, while most of the business to the south is retail,” Alberti explains. Pall-Ex Italia has achieved total


coverage of the country, although Alberti admits that it was a hard


the economy and the enormous number of manufacturers and other companies who have gone to the wall that is having the biggest effect on the market. One way out of the impasse is to


boost export traffic. “We are trying to push this much more,” Alberti explains, “especially with the opening of the Pall-Ex networks in many other countries.” At the moment, international traffic isn’t a big proportion of Pall-Ex Italia’s volume but soon, the Pall-Ex brand will be nationwide in most other major EU countries. “Pall-Ex is present in Italy, Spain and the


UK, though not yet Germany and France. But with the extension of the network, this will be a very important year for us,” Alberti says. Southern Italian exporters


will especially benefit, she feels. While Milan and the north have long enjoyed regular, frequent groupage services, far fewer options have been available from Rome southwards and Pall-Ex will be able to offer faster and more frequent deliveries than the competition. Foodstuffs are particularly important in the south and there is a ready market all over


Europe. In the UK, Pall-Ex deputy


managing director Cris Stephenson says that traffic to and from Italy is reasonably brisk, although inevitably there is more coming in than going out. “We don’t see ourselves as being in competition with the big groupage operators but offering a complete service to our UK customers,” he said. Having Pall-Ex Italia set up gives the UK members confidence in sending traffic there, he adds. “In the past, they might have been reluctant because if anything went


wrong in Italy, they might have lost their UK business from that customer too.” But the full network and, crucially, the IT system in place in Italy gives them complete confidence, he says. There is a fair mixture of traffic


from Italy. Ceramics, which form a useful heavy traffic, plus food and wine. Stephenson also expects


Italian international business to grow as Pall-Ex gets more countries on-stream. “There is a lot of potential in Spain and Romania,” for example.


Bring branches out into Italy


For many years Bring Cargo was known as a major player on the Scandinavian


markets but in


recent years the company has driven a pathway into European markets such as Holland, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Portugal and, back in early 2012 opened up a service line to and from Italy. The company recruited Allan Marsden who, with over 30 years’ experience in the Italian market, set about building up the new service. Bring Cargo decided on a


service that would operate north and south bound every Tuesday and Friday and an agency agreement was signed with Euronord International, based in the Como area.


The service started on in May 2012 using Bring’s own trucks, each having two drivers to enable a fast and reliable transit time of 48 hours between terminals at Manchester and Como. Bring Cargo offers a two-tier


service – Standard and Express. Allan Marsden adds: “At each terminal we can


tap into a


European wide fleet of over 300 smaller vehicles who are ready at the drop of a hat to deliver express shipments virtually anywhere, anytime.” Marsden continues: “We believe


that the certainty and reliability of departures coupled with the fast transit times has proved to be a recipe for success and has given confidence to our clients and has


been a factor in attracting new business to a relatively new line. “We have also come to see


that the market has thrown up a service gap for a reliable and economical service to carry ADR cargo to and from Italy. This has been set as our target for 2013 – it will complement our existing twice-weekly service and to give a value–added service to our client base. “In


these difficult economic


times we are convinced that manufacturers and fellow freight operators are looking for a reliable yet cost effective service to and from Italy. We feel we have got the balance just right and look forward to further growth in the Italian market in 2013.”


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