Grytastranda Fiskeindustri, Alesund, Norway
As a coastal town, Alesund in Norway relies on the sea, with two of its biggest industries being ship building and fishing. Grystastranda Fiskeindustri is one of the country’s leading providers of fish products, supplying markets as diverse as Brazil, Africa and Europe. They rely on Toyota Material Handling Europe (TMHE)’s resilient forklifts to help them with this process.

Working with both dried and salted fish, the company’s forklift trucks have to withstand exceptionally high levels of corrosion from the excessive amounts of salt. Their fleet of three Toyota Tonero and three 7FBEF18 counterbalanced trucks are able to function under these conditions and keep the company in operation, whilst TMHE’s service commitment means that the trucks are always maintained and any problems can be resolved promptly.
  
“Grytastranda Fiskeindustri is one of Norway’s largest producers of salted and dried fish,” explains employee, Svein Cato Haram. “We employ 22 people here at Grytastranda in the Alesund region of Norway. The fish arrives on trucks from the ships where the fish is frozen after being caught. Then we put it into cold storage from where we take it as is required.

“First we sort the fish into sizes; then it is placed in salted containers. The fish is then stored in containers of water for 14 days then sorted, processed and cleaned. The next step is to move the fish to the drying area for two to three days. Then it is moved to chilled storage after which it is finally sorted and packaged by weight for our exporters and finally shipped by road.”

This means that Grytastranda Fiskeindustri has a high level of expectation from their trucks, but it’s one that TMHE is able to meet with their forklift service solutions and regular servicing. “We are able to keep the trucks operating here with just four scheduled visits each year. Of course, the conditions mean that the trucks have a shorter working life but reliability is not a major problem,” says TMH Norway employee, Tron Tysnes.

“We produce approximately 30 tonnes of fish each day, which equates to 70,000 pallet movements each year, with each load weighing around 1,000 kg,” continues Svein Cato Haram.

“We need reliable trucks in the process because they unload all the time from incoming vehicles and are moving the fish continuously in the process. If the trucks don’t work the whole production will stop.

“We use three diesel Toyota Tonero and three electric trucks. Our relationship with Toyota started in 1989 and we have since only used Toyota trucks because of the product quality, the relationship with the salesman and the service from the team here in Ida.”

TMHE is committed to meeting its customers’ needs, no matter the demand or circumstances. Working with a vast variety of companies, it is imperative to deliver the same quality of services to both large businesses and smaller, more independent ones. “It is important to keep local Norwegian businesses like this working because they are producing our products for consumption all over the world. We like to play our part in the process,” concludes Tron Tysnes.