Stobart has expanded its use of hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) across its network for customer PepsiCo – and it estimated this should save an additional 13,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the year.

Walkers crisps will now be transported from PepsiCo’s Leicester site to retailers using five million litres of HVO to fuel over 11 million miles of HGV truck journeys across the remainder of 2024.

It is the latest in a series of HVO expansion plans put into action across the PepsiCo business.

It has already replaced diesel on trucks travelling between the Quaker Oats Mill in Cupar and Walkers’ home in Leicester, alongside routes between British farms and Leicester.

Stobart said the low carbon fuel was now being used to fuel 40% of transport involved in Walkers crisps deliveries and the initiative helped support its decarbonisation goals.

David Pickering, Stobart chief executive, said: “This important initiative will help Stobart and PepsiCo to jointly decarbonise their supply chain service by over 13,000 tonnes of carbon this year alone.

“We’re now actively working on further initiatives with PepsiCo to continue to accelerate our decarbonisation journey.”

Simon Devaney, sustainability director at PepsiCo UK & Ireland, said: “Scaling up our use of HVO-powered trucks to transport our Walkers crisps all over the country is a significant further step in our decarbonisation journey.

“By continuing to invest in green logistics initiatives with trusted partners we’re moving even closer to our goal of net zero by 2040.”