At the forefront of innovation: Gray & Adams recognised with prestigious Queens Award for Enterprise

Following the Royal visit by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in 2017, Gray & Adams Ltd., headquartered in Fraserburgh and one of the UK’s premium manufacturing companies, has received further Royal recognition. The company’s outstanding achievement in temperature-controlled vehicle design and manufacture has been recognised with a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation for its double deck trailer design.

Conceived in 1965, the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are the most prestigious awards in UK business. Previous winners include Dyson, Jaguar Landrover and JCB. This year, 220 UK businesses have been recognised by the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise including 66 for innovation.

With over 60 years’ experience in manufacturing and working from its now world-class facility in Fraserburgh, Gray & Adams has a unique understanding of its customer’s needs and recognises the real commercial pressures in the UK cold chain supply. Having pioneered temperature-controlled lifting deck trailer technology in the nineties, the company continues to be at the cutting edge of technology, delivering practical commercial solutions for its customers, as well as understanding the impact of its activities on the environment. As an ever-growing driver in its industry, Gray & Adams ensures all of its products consider the environment in order to remain at the forefront of sustainable innovation to reduce the carbon footprint of its products.

Raising the bar with lifting deck trailers

Originally developed in the 1990’s and continuously evolving, the lifting deck semi-trailer is the most important single step forward in trailer design in the last 20 years. It enables customers to move large volumes of goods cost effectively and efficiently and contributes significantly to reducing vehicle mileage and Co2 emissions. These trailers will typically move 44 pallets as opposed to 26 pallets in a standard 13.6m semi-trailer. Gray & Adams have consistently improved the design of these award-winning trailers to include multi-temperature and urban delivery variants, bringing the same carbon-busting benefits to the high street.

Automated loading systems

Working with NewCold Logistics in 2019, Gray & Adams engineered a solution to facilitate auto loading operations in a temperature-controlled environment to ensure best quality produce and optimised efficiency with reduced loading times. The innovation was a first for the UK and the design, known as the Pod, enables loading in just seven minutes with full unload and reload taking less than 30 minutes in total. The temperature-controlled environment also means produce can be unloaded and left inside until loading is required, offering flexibility without compromising on quality.

In 2020, working with global perishable cargo specialists, Perishable Movements Ltd (PML), Gray & Adams engineered another innovative first for the UK – a refrigerated trailer with an automated loading and unloading system. As PML’s cargo is held in air freight containers, the rollerbed method which transfers the cargo via a series of drive rollers that are built into the floor, is the only system available for use in this specialist area of the freight transport industry. With remote operation integral to the new and innovative design, the reefer trailer has been developed to allow safe and efficient operation where personnel are not able to access the interior of the trailer throughout the loading process. Additionally, staff can accurately and safely control the speed of discharge from the control panel, and further engineering innovations have been built into the electronic and pneumatic controls to complement the refrigerated environment, ensuring maximum product performance and quality for years to come.

Urban delivery

In 2019, Gray and Adams worked in close partnership with both Reynolds and Electra Commercial Vehicles, to create an exciting new design for a zero carbon, electric urban trailer. The fully electric, sustainable trailer features a solar panel roof, nearside and offside doors, side scanning systems, Banksman lights and safety features such as hazard lights when deploying side steps. As this new vehicle is almost silent in operation, Reynolds can confidently deliver at night in built up areas with a much-reduced chance of disturbing the local communities they operate in.

James and Peter Gray, Joint Managing Directors, commented,

“In these challenging times, we very much hope the recognition this prestigious award brings will give a small amount of cheer and encouragement to our employees in the North East of Scotland, and across the UK.

We are massively appreciative of our highly skilled engineering teams and our manufacturing operatives that allow us to produce our world-class products. We would also like to thank our very loyal customers and partners, without whose assistance and support we would be unable to enjoy such highly respected recognition.”