Mer supports Pilgrim’s UK net zero drive

Leading EV charging infrastructure provider Mer is helping Pilgrim’s UK in its drive to net zero.

Pilgrim’s UK is Britain’s biggest producer of sustainably produced quality pork products, operating from 13 sites across the UK. Part of the Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, the company is committed to net zero for its own operations by 2030 and across its entire supply chain by 2035. Part of this process includes transitioning its 200-strong company car fleet to plug-in vehicles.

“We introduced a company car policy mandating all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles,” said Graham Handford, procurement manager, indirect for Pilgrim’s UK. “We felt it was vital to support that policy with charging infrastructure at our key sites, while offering free charging also encourage employees and visitors to make the switch to EVs.”

Pilgrim’s UK turned to EV charging specialist Mer to provide a phased roll-out of infrastructure across 11 sites. Mer is one of Europe’s largest charging infrastructure providers and has extensive experience in working with large companies on complex projects across multiple sites.

“It was important to us to offer free charging as a benefit not just to company car drivers but to all employees and visitors,” said Graham. “This is part of our wider sustainability advocacy which reaches beyond driving down our own emissions. We can easily monitor how much energy is used through Mer’s back-office system, but other than that the infrastructure pretty much looks after itself and requires very little management resource.

“We felt it was vital to support that policy with charging infrastructure at our key sites, while offering free charging also encourage employees and visitors to make the switch to EVs.”

Graham Handford - Procurement manager, indirect for Pilgrim’s UK

“Other key capabilities we looked for in our EV charging provider included the expertise to future-proof our network and to help us solve problems when challenges arose. Grid capacity is an issue for a lot of businesses looking to install EV charge points and some of our sites were challenging, but Mer was with us every step of the way. In some cases, this meant bringing more power on site, and in others it meant Mer deploying the smart chargers’ load-balancing technology.”

Along with the substantial investment in EV charging, other sustainability initiatives by Pilgrim’s UK include spending £600,000 at its King’s Lynn facility to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. This saw the site’s fleet replaced with electric vehicles, plus upgrades to refrigeration plants and installation of LED lighting.

Meanwhile, take-up of electric company cars has been so strong at its head office in Warwick that it has already asked Mer to expand the charging infrastructure there. “One of the benefits of working with Mer was that they future-proofed our sites,” added Graham. “This means a lot of the connectivity work below ground has already been done, so we can quickly and cost-effectively add more chargers in the future. This is already being demonstrated in our expansion at Warwick and will enable us to scale up all our sites as the transition to EVs gathers pace.”

Marvin Wright, Associate Consultant at Mer, and key liaison with Pilgrim’s UK on this project, said: “Mer is proud to be supporting Pilgrim’s UK in decarbonising its fleet. From the outset we worked extremely closely with the client to ensure delivery of a complex project covering multiple sites with varying needs.”

About Mer

Mer is a European EV charging company, backed by Statkraft, Europe’s largest renewable energy generator. By bringing together its extensive expertise in renewable energy and electric mobility, Mer is on a mission to make EV charging simple, sustainable, and accessible to everyone. In the UK, Mer delivers complete EV charging solutions to businesses and local authorities, helping power the shift to purer transportation across Europe.