Victorian-headquartered fresh fruit producers and marketers Premier Fresh Australia, has signed a deal with Toyota Material Handling Australia (TMHA) for more than 120 machines including forklifts and pallet jacks.

The new 120-strong fleet for Premier Fresh contains a mix of primarily LPG counterbalance forklifts, as well as battery-electric forklifts and electric pallet jacks for a wide range of loading and transport uses.

The deal is Premier Fresh Australia’s second long-term lease deal with TMHA; the two have had a working relationship for more than 20 years.

Premier Fresh Australia’s executive general manager operations and farming, Stephen Millar, explains the quality, durability and reliability of Toyota’s forklifts, was a key in the decision to renew the lease agreement.

“They’re very robust units, they’re very reliable, we find them to be pretty efficient with usage as well, they meet the mark,” Millar adds.

“I think where we operate, the conditions that we operate, we need something that can handle the climate we operate in, and we find that these ones are basically bulletproof. So that’s one of the main drawcards for them.”

Premier Fresh Australia is 100% Australian-owned, and has around 450 employees at sites across the country, from banana farms in Humpty Doo, Innisfail and Mission Beach, a gourmet tomato warehouse in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley, and warehouses and market trading floors in many of Australia’s capital cities.

Its large geographical footprint means the company’s materials handling equipment needs to be operational in a range of different conditions from hot and humid regional Queensland to the cold produce markets of Victoria.

“One of the reasons we like dealing with Toyota is we’re spread out across Australia, some of the areas are pretty remote,” Miller continues. “They’ve got service agreements with us in each of those locations where we have the routine maintenance take place.

“We ensure the forklifts and the equipment have maximum uptime available to use, so we invest in that regular maintenance and they’re able to provide that to us in each of those locations. And in the event that you have an unforeseen, unplanned service required, their turnaround times are quite prompt and the service arms of the business have always been quite professional.

“They know what they’re doing – they come out, they handle it well and they understand our business well enough to know how urgent those forks are to be back and up and running. They’re very good at what they do.”