8
BULKDISTRIBUTOR
Containers
September/October 2016
€2.5m EU grant for HCI’s New Operations
foldable containers
Director for CH
Robinson’s Europe
H
Transportation division
olland Container Innovations (HCI) has
been awarded a European grant of
€2.5 million to develop its 4FOLD foldable
containers, intended for global transport by
land and sea.
The company, based in Delft in the Netherlands,
was one of only 33 from a total of 960 applicants
to receive funding from the second phase of the
European innovation program Horizon 2020’s
SME instrument.
Currently, the transportation industry spends
about €25 billion a year on moving empty cargo
containers. Foldable containers are a solution to
cutting both the cost and CO2 emissions associated
with this. The idea was initially conceived by the
Delft University of Technology and resulted in the
establishment of HCI in 2008. The 4FOLD container
can, once emptied, be reduced to a quarter of its
normal size. HCI launched the product at a major
container industry exhibition in 2014, and the grant
will now catalyse its market introduction.
Simon Bosschieter, one of the founders of HCI,
said: “The 4FOLD containers are a breakthrough
solution and ready to change the current landscape
of the international transport sector. The positioning
of empty containers is one of the most complex
problems concerning global freight distribution and
represents large costs. The cost needs to be reduced
while there is also an expanding global demand to
cut CO2 emissions. HCI can make the difference.”
“HCI can accelerate the market introduction with
the grant from the SME instrument. In order to
convince the logistics sector of the value of 4FOLD,
a large-scale demonstration will be executed.”
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20160913 Adv Bulk Distributor - Robuschi story-01.indd 1
H Robinson Europe has announced
that Nikolay Pargov has joined the
company as Operations Director, Europe
Transportation. Pargov brings 13 years of
experience to the role, which includes leading
the region’s capacity teams. He will also serve
on the Europe leadership team, which is
focused on growing the company’s presence
in the region.
“The knowledge and range of specialised
experience that Nikolay brings to this position
makes him well qualified to lead CH Robinson’s
capacity teams in Europe,” said Jeroen Eijsink,
President of Europe for the company. “We are
excited to add yet another industry expert to our
strong European leadership team.”
Since 1993, CH Robinson has provided
customers with flexible, quality and reliable
services in Europe that set them apart from
competitors. The company’s motivated,
multilingual and customer-focused employees
apply their local knowledge and expertise to every
transport challenge and build strong, personalised
relationships with the customers