Typically, most transport operators look to maximise their payloads and run at the upper limits of their legal weights.
In contrast, Melbourne-based Polyfoam Australia’s products are probably the lightest by weight and largest by volume encountered in the road transport industry.
The company, which celebrates 40 years in business in 2025, is owned and run by Bruce and Simon Pickett.
Polyfoam’s core business is manufacturing expanded polystyrene packaging products for use in the produce, seafood, medical, and food industries as well as for construction and insulating products.
Polyfoam also produces a range of moulded Expanded Polypropylene (EPP) packaging, specifically designed for the protection of expensive pieces of equipment.
Polyfoam Australia has manufacturing facilities in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australia and now has two factories in Tasmania which provide key support for the local salmon export industry through production of expanded polystyrene foam packing boxes.
“Our product is so light, even a fully loaded 14-pallet rigid or 24 pallet drop-deck semi-trailer would not add even a tonne to the total mass of the combination,” says Polyfoam’s General Manager Nick Tandy.
Around five years ago, Polyfoam turned to Scania for the supply of rigid trucks to transport the expanded polystyrene food boxes because their previous Japanese supplier could no longer offer a suitable vehicle.
“We made the mistake of buying very light weight trucks in consideration of carrying light weight products,” says Nick.
“What we needed was a lightweight truck that could also be stable on the road when it’s loaded or unloaded, because we often have no backload.”
The first Scania to join the Polyfoam fleet was a P 280 rigid, and subsequent rigid trucks have shifted up to the P 320 specification, and single and dual axle trailers were added on some routes to maximise the volume of product delivered per journey.
Two Scania G 450 prime movers have since been added in combination with drop-deck curtainsider trailers manufactured by Vawdrey.
The low weight, high volume of the loads is due to the fundamental designs of products such as foam food boxes.
“Our boxes have to be strong, so they are as wide at the top as the bottom, which means we can’t nest them and therefore transport more product in a given space,” says Nick.
“The boxes for the fish weigh 25 kilograms when full of salmon and ice, and they’re often stacked ten high, so the box at the bottom is supporting 250kg. This is important for our customers, as they need to get the most amount of product in the smallest space to keep their export transport costs to a minimum.”
Polyfoam sells to all the major salmon farmers in Tasmania, who need a robust, leak-free container that will keep their produce fresh.
The boxes meet the Australian standard for seafood airfreight approval, which means they won’t leak seawater in the plane.
Foam boxes used for agricultural products are often used in the field where fresh vegetables such as broccoli are picked straight into the boxes.
This contributes to the produce’s freshness and quality when it arrives at market. Due to the combination of light payloads and large surface areas, both rigids and trailers can exhibit the characteristics of large sails that can be affected by cross winds when traversing locations such as across Melbourne’s Westgate Bridge.
The Scanias provide a stable ride, and the inbuilt electronic stability control is always there as a backup if the side winds are too extreme.
The introduction of the Scania trucks to the Polyfoam fleet received a good response from the drivers and an ongoing commitment from senior company executives.
“From the start everybody loved the Scanias”, says company Founder Bruce Pickett who, himself, still occasionally drives trucks.
“The cabin layout, the access, the simplicity of the vehicle to operate. And it is great to drive. We now have three Scania rigids and two prime movers in Victoria, one Scania prime mover in Bridgewater in Tasmania, one rigid in Westbury in Tasmania at the new factory, and in Queensland I’ve got six rigids in service and two more on order. We’re also introducing Scania to our NSW operation with two going in there, and there will be a new prime mover for Westbury in Tasmania as well.”
The modernisation of the fleet incorporating the new Scanias has helped with driver retention and has contributed to the image of the business.
From the base in Dandenong South, Polyfoam’s trucks deliver all over Victoria, from Portland to Bairnsdale and up to Shepparton.
The Victorian trucks travel on average 100,000 kilometres annually, while in Queensland each may cover around 200,000kms per year, due to the longer distances involved.
Although weight may not be an issue, wind resistance is an area where the aerodynamic Scanias have an advantage, in combination with the nose cone deflectors fitted to the fronts of the rigid and trailer bodies.
“We’re pleased to see that the Scanias are returning better fuel efficiency than our older trucks, even though the payload is so light,” says Nick.
The Scanias are on contracted repair and maintenance programs providing Polyfoam with the predictability of knowing exactly what the monthly servicing costs are going to be. The Scanias are expected to be replaced after performing around 700,000 kms.
“They will have had a relatively easy life, of course, although the rigids do deliveries to farms and also to building sites, so they’re often on poor roads and dirt,” says Nick.
Scania’s driver scoring feature is a valuable management tool.
“I get the report every Monday and I go through it,” says Nick.
“If I see a lot of harsh braking, I might have a word with the supervisor at a particular site and ask them to talk with their drivers. Harsh braking and harsh acceleration are things we watch pretty closely. It’s useful to us to provide feedback to the drivers and suggest ‘Hey mate, just settle down’.”
Polyfoam imports the raw materials in granular form from all over the world and then subjects them to steam which fluffs them up.
After sitting for a period to stabilise, the now fluffy granules are then poured into a mould and steamed a second time to fuse them into shape.
“As a business we’re constantly looking for efficiencies, just like Scania,” says Nick.
“We try all sorts of ways to shave a few grams of base stock out of the design, and we have updated European machinery that can now mould multiple boxes at a time.”
Polyfoam takes its environmental responsibilities seriously and it is committed to helping its customers close the loop in product lifecycle by providing comprehensive end-of-life recycling options for all its foam products.
Up to nine tonnes per week of recycled foam is ground up to be reused, in combination with some virgin pellet stock, and the recycled material is then turned into the polystyrene pallets on which products such as food boxes are placed for transport or used to make foam waffle pods for use in construction.
A typical unladen wooden pallet weighs around 60kgs, in contrast to the 2kgs of the polystyrene pallets used for Polyfoam’s products.
“Our plastic pallets often weigh more than the load that is strapped to them,” Nick says.
“We say that our polystyrene product is more economical to recycle than cardboard, because polystyrene products come back, are ground up and are then ready to reuse.”
The late model Scania trucks are integral in Polyfoam Australia’s provision of practical eco-friendly expanded polystyrene solutions for packaging and construction applications in a growing list of industries.
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