The movement of heating products such as logs, firewood, and burners on pallets is expected to rise as consumers across the UK and Europe look for alternative ways to heat their homes following higher fuel bills over the last two years.

Palletways’ forecast comes following reports from the Stove Industry Alliance (SIA) that wood logs are the cheapest domestic heating fuel, costing households 74% less per kWh than electric heating and 21% less than gas heating. In addition to significant cost savings, wood fuel has the lowest carbon intensity of any domestic heating fuel.

Commenting on the freight coming through its UK and European hubs, Luis Zubialde, chief executive officer at the Palletways Group, said: “Following months of interest rate hikes and escalating energy costs, it comes as little surprise that consumers are taking action to cushion themselves against spiralling energy bills and are looking for alternative, cost-effective ways to heat their homes. The challenge for logisticians is that we’re about to enter a critical phase in the seasonal supply chain calendar, and a perfect storm is brewing with the ongoing challenges of driver shortages, fuel increases and the spike in demand for goods ahead of the festive period.

“Building resilience into the supply chain has never been so important for business sustainability. Fortunately, thanks to our investment in IT, we have an abundance of data that we can harness from across the Group. This means we can act in an agile way and can divert and deploy resources across our 20+ UK and European hubs as and where demand dictates.

“We’ve worked hard to make sure we’re well prepared for a surge in B2C shipments and for the potential for them to be concentrated in a relatively small timeframe before temperatures fall. This is all part of our commitment to deliver service quality for our members and their customers during the busiest of periods.

“We’ve already witnessed huge volumes of home heating products like chimeneas, firewood, and pellets pass through our networks as consumers begin to future-proof their homes and we expect this uptick to continue into the autumn and winter months.”

Palletways launched the industry’s first palletised freight product specifically for home deliveries and its Pallets to Consumers (P2C) service  is for companies who sell online directly to the end consumer and need a reliable delivery partner to get their product to its destination.

Founded in the UK in 1994, the Palletways Group began developing its pan-European network in 2002. Today, it operates in 24 countries and currently works with more than 450 depots and over 20 hubs.