A NEW fleet force is helping reduce congestion and pollution, despite undergoing big expansion.

Tesco is taking on 70 new Ford Transit vans for its home shopping service in a deal worth £1.3 million at showroom prices as shoppers turn to buying on the internet.

Tesco.com currently has more than 1,600 delivery drivers running a fleet of 900 vans, fitted out with ambient, chilled and frozen compartments. Many more people are needed to fill both part-time and full-time roles and the addition of more vans to the fleet will create further opportunities.

The Tesco.com home shopping business is booming – up 26% in a year according to recent figures. It now has about 3.5 million registered customers and handles 100,000 orders per week. Effectively, this means 100,000 car journeys are avoided every week, equivalent to 5.2 million a year.

Tesco.com chief executive John Browett: 'We're entering a new golden era of delivering to the door – with all the benefits this can bring to the community. Before internet shopping came along, the tradition of home delivery was all but dead. Now, the supermarket delivery van is fast becoming a familiar and welcome part of the nation's street scene.'

The Tesco.com website was set up in 1999 by a project team of six Tesco staff who took just eight weeks to build the site themselves and get it up and running. Within a year, it was rolled out to stores nationwide and by September 2000, it had 90% population coverage.

Tesco.com fact file

  • Registered £447 million of sales in 2002/2003 – up 26% on the previous year
  • Has more than three million registered customers
  • Receives 2.5 million unique visits per month
  • Has delivered to more than one million households
  • Operates in over 270 stores and covers 96% of the UK
  • Handles about 100,000 orders per week
  • Runs a fleet of 1,000 vans