Local truck team JAC has announced its support for food rescue charity KiwiHarvest.
JAC has supported KiwiHarvest by gifting its JAC 100 percent electric truck across Auckland City over the next year. The addition of the JAC truck has significantly expanded KiwiHarvest’s operations and reduced its carbon footprint.
KiwiHarvest chief executive Angela Calver said the JAC electric truck had added capacity for 2,100 collections, resulting in over 400,000 extra meals distributed into communities each year.
“As a food rescue organisation, KiwiHarvest collects food that is unable to be sold for a variety of reasons, e.g. short-dated, out of spec, surplus, and we redistribute this to charities who provide both food and wrap-around support services. KiwiHarvest feeds 9,500 people every week, and we recently celebrated redistributing 14 million kgs of food waste saved,” said Calver.
“Saving good food from landfill while operating sustainably is central to our mission so the use of a zero-emissions truck not only enables us to rescue more, it also helps us reduce our carbon footprint.”
In its first month of supporting KiwiHarvest, the EV Truck has exceeded expectations. The chilled truck completed its entire daily run of collections and drop-offs across Auckland, arriving back to base, using only 20 to 25 percent of the battery across its average distance of 62.2 km a day. It operates well within the JAC’s fully loaded urban range of 200km plus.
KiwiHarvest operates in Auckland, Dunedin, Queenstown, and Invercargill. To maximise the benefits of the EV, it has selected the most urban route in Auckland with start-stop traffic. The organisation will also measure this impact with EROAD to help measure its full emissions reduction.
With its 200 km plus fully loaded range, the JAC truck is best suited for urban use, such as last-mile delivery and distribution. It also has a range of GVMs, including a 6T that can be driven on a car licence, 7.5T, and 9T, and various body types, including the freezer box body used by KiwiHarvest.
The JAC truck was part-funded by the Government’s Low Emissions Heavy Vehicle Fund, administered by EECA (Energy Efficiency and Conversation Authority). These EV trucks are eligible for grants of up to 25 percent off the cab chassis price, capped at NZD 35,000.
