It is the company's first European deal and is the result of a collaboration between its commercial services division and catering company apetito Ile de France.
The division, which specialises in providing vehicles for the food and catering sectors, is providing 13 vans from its Trowbridge workshops in the UK.
Apetito Ile de France, one of the country's leading contract caterers, will lease the vehicles. Fleetlease Commercial Vehicle Services already provides 300 chefmobils to apetito UK, which prepares about 50,000 pre-cooked meals every day and is the leading supplier to Meals on Wheels.
'We have worked with apetito UK for several years, converting Citroen vehicles to their specifications,' said Glenn Whatley, Fleetlease Commercial Vehicles Services account manager.
'We install the oven, chiller compartments for desserts and secure storage for the oven's gas cylinders as well as sophisticated monitoring equipment to ensure meals are delivered at the optimum temperature.'
In the UK the meals are loaded directly from the freezer, but apetito Ile de France delivers pre-chilled lunch and evening meals which means additional chiller space had to be incorporated into the chefmobil.
The vehicles also needed extra capacity to deliver pre-chilled weekend meals at the end of the week – unlike the UK which is a seven-day operation.
Whatley added: 'It has been a logistical challenge and one which required great co-operation between ourselves, the oven manufacturers, JATA of Germany and several apetito companies who are delivering a meals on wheels service in their own country.
'The French also have very high standards as to what their elderly citizens can expect. We had to allow for a four-course lunch, including a cheese course, fresh bread and a quarter bottle of wine. Being old in France clearly has some compensations.'
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