45. CERES Fair Food, Preston, VIC

Electric Vehicles, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people of the Kulin Nation

CERES Fair Food delivers organic groceries to households across Melbourne, sourced from over 150 farmers and ethical grocery makers. They support regenerative farming practices and closed loop waste cycles, provide employment and career pathways for new migrants, and return 100% of profits to CERES environmental education programs.

With their warehouse already powered by rooftop solar, CERES Fair Food are looking to add an electric van to their food box delivery fleet bringing the social enterprise even closer to offering emissions free grocery delivery.

One major hurdle to adopting electric vans for food deliveries is their use is restricted to non perishable foods if they are not refrigerated. CERES Fair Food fitted this van with a refrigeration unit powered by the high voltage battery. This unit uses propane, a super efficient refrigerant with a very low global warming potential. The refrigeration unit chosen also doesn’t require regular servicing or re-gassing.

The E-transit van was chosen for its cargo volume as well its range which was sufficient for a typical daily delivery run of 200km. CERES estimates the van will do approx 40,000kms per year.

Although not yet used on many hot days, early testing on warmer days showed that the combination of the refrigeration unit and good insulation works extremely well. On a typical delivery run, running the refrigeration unit uses roughly 10% of the overall battery capacity.

CORENA has been approached by a number of food rescue and delivery services asking about refrigerated electric vans so we hope this will become an important case study for other not for profits doing similar work.

Website: https://www.ceresfairfood.org.au/

This project has been fully funded. Thankyou!