IN Brief:
- Masters Logistical has introduced two Volvo FM Electric trucks for British Sugar movements.
- The vehicles will move sugar between Wissington, Bury St Edmunds, and a Cambridgeshire distribution centre.
- The operation handles more than 3,500 tonnes of sugar each week.
Masters Logistical has introduced two Volvo FM Electric trucks into its fleet to support its logistics partnership with British Sugar, adding zero-tailpipe-emission vehicles to a high-volume food manufacturing distribution operation in East Anglia.
The vehicles will move sugar between British Sugar’s manufacturing sites at Wissington and Bury St Edmunds and Masters’ distribution centre in Cambridgeshire. Masters currently handles more than 3,500 tonnes of sugar each week for British Sugar as part of an integrated warehousing and distribution arrangement.
The two trucks are expected to save more than 100,000kg of CO2 annually. Their deployment is centred on regular shuttle movements between fixed sites, a duty cycle suited to early electric HGV adoption because routes, loading patterns, charging windows, and vehicle utilisation can be planned with a high degree of control.
Volvo’s FM Electric platform is designed for intensive regional and urban operations. In this application, the trucks are being used in a manufacturing-linked distribution flow rather than a public-facing parcel or grocery operation, where much of the early visibility around electric commercial vehicles has concentrated. Industrial and food manufacturing shuttles can offer strong early use cases because mileage, payload, return legs, and depot access are more predictable than in open network transport.
The relationship between Masters and British Sugar began in 2018, when Masters provided a short-term warehousing solution during an automation upgrade at British Sugar’s Wissington factory. The partnership has since developed into a wider logistics operation, with Masters handling more than one million pallets for the business.
Masters became part of Knowles Logistics Group in 2022, giving the operation access to a broader family-owned logistics network with investment in fleet and infrastructure. The group now runs 11 electric vehicles across its fleet, placing the British Sugar trucks within a wider transition rather than a standalone trial.
Electric HGV adoption in the UK remains constrained by capital cost, payload trade-offs, range confidence, charging infrastructure, grid connection lead times, and route complexity. The technology is advancing, although successful deployment still depends heavily on matching the vehicle to the duty cycle. Fixed shuttle work between production sites and distribution centres remains one of the clearest places to start.
IN Supply has recently tracked related UK fleet developments, including Bartrums’ investment in fleet renewal and charging capacity and Saint-Gobain’s addition of electric HGVs with XPO Logistics. The pattern is becoming more practical than promotional: operators are deploying electric trucks where depots, customers, and routes give them enough control to test performance without weakening service reliability.
Food manufacturing logistics brings its own operational pressures. Distribution flows are volume-intensive, service-sensitive, and exposed to retailer expectations, production schedules, and seasonal demand. Low-emission fleet investment has to protect throughput before it can deliver environmental benefit. Vehicles that miss loading windows or reduce availability will not support a resilient manufacturing supply chain, regardless of their emissions profile.
The British Sugar application gives Masters a controlled but commercially relevant test environment. The trucks are not being asked to solve every long-haul problem. They are being inserted into a repeatable industrial flow where battery performance, driver feedback, charging reliability, payload handling, route discipline, and maintenance needs can be assessed against diesel operations.
The transition to lower-emission logistics will arrive unevenly across the freight market. Urban delivery, depot-to-depot shuttles, port drayage, and short regional trunking are likely to move before more complex long-distance operations. Masters’ deployment sits squarely in that first wave: operationally controlled, closely tied to production, and sufficiently high-volume to provide meaningful evidence for future fleet decisions.