Iceland Foods has increased its home delivery fleet with 250 new Mercedes-Benz Sprinter refrigerated vans.

The specially converted vehicles have been supplied by the company’s long-term supply partner VMS Fleet Management.

These new vehicles boast an increased capacity for customer orders, so Iceland can continue to supply its customers quickly and effectively now and into the future.

Kevin Tully, head of Delivered Sales at Iceland Foods, said: “We’ve continued to work closely with VMS Fleet Management to support the significant increase in demand for online deliveries, seeing our volume increase by over 400% against last year’s numbers.

“The support we have received from VMS has enabled us to continue to service communities across the country and offer guaranteed deliveries to the most vulnerable. I am extremely excited about the new vehicles which give further increases to our overall capacity and future-proof our fleet for years to come.”

With the help of partners Paneltex and Solomons Commercials, the vans have been converted to include a triple compartment rear box which, with the Alex Original Twin Evap fridge unit supplied and installed within the vehicles by VMS Refrigeration, offers ambient, chill and frozen settings for different food and delivery requirements.

Martin James, managing director of VMS Fleet Management, added: “Iceland was the first major food chain outlet to offer home delivery to in-store shoppers, and we’ve been there for the major part of their journey helping those customers who needed that door to door service – which has inevitably grown into a much larger, more complex delivery programme than anyone imagined 25 years ago.

“Operationally, we’ve worked closely with Iceland over the years to ensure they are in a strong position to offer the kind of service their customers need and have come to expect. We’re very proud to be able to help them with the supply and management of these new vehicles so that Iceland can support and fulfil the orders made by those customers all over the country who are staying safe at home.”

The new Sprinters are currently being supplied to Iceland sites and will be rolled out into the fleet as soon as possible and will be active on roads across the UK pre and post-Christmas.