Hyster has donated the 500,000th forklift manufactured at its plant in Northern Ireland to FareShare, the United Kingdom’s longest running food redistribution charity. 

Representatives from FareShare visited Hyster’s Craigavon plant to receive the new equipment, a Hyster J1.6XNT three-wheel electric forklift.

The donated forklift features the name of every current employee at the manufacturing plant

UK and Ireland Hyster dealer Briggs Equipment will provide free-of-charge training and servicing of the donated forklift during the warranty period.

“We are absolutely delighted that FareShare has been chosen to receive the half millionth forklift truck,” says Homeless Connect head of operations Declan McKillop.

“The Hyster truck will play a vital role at our depot in Mallusk in helping us to redistribute good quality surplus food to over 170 local charities, community groups, schools, homeless hostels and foodbanks that we support every week.”

FareShare provides Northern Ireland’s largest food redistribution network. Last year it distributed 669 tonnes of food, equivalent to 1.6 million meals to 179 charities, community groups and schools throughout Northern Ireland. 

More than 35,000 people each year benefit from FareShare food. 

“Giving back is something that is incredibly important to our whole team,” says Darren Johnston, plant manager at Hyster’s Craigavon site.

“Supporting a great cause that benefits those in our local community seemed the ideal way to celebrate the milestone of manufacturing half a million trucks on our production lines.”

In other news, Hyster-Yale Group is relocating its Asia-Pacific parts distribution centre to Johor Bahru in Malaysia.

The new centre will be supported by third-party logistics provider Geodis and will be able to do next-day deliveries to dealers in the region.