Driving to or from their summer holidays this year, holidaymakers — whether staycationers or Channel-hoppers — will have seen no shortage of green and white Eddie Stobart trucks.

While most road hauliers have whinged their way through the recession, Stobart has kept on trucking. It today said the first six months of its financial year had been in line with management expectations, and is likely to be similar to the second half of last year.

Stobart said trucking volumes had remained strong, with chilled and non-food trucks seeing strong volumes. The group has been winning business as it convinces the big supermarket chains it can help them eliminate so-called empty miles. That means rather than, say, a Tesco lorry leaving its central warehouse, delivering to a couple of stores and returning without anything on board, Stobart can schedule its own vehicles on a continual dropping-off and picking-up route. It also has the advantage that it lorries can go into rival supermarkets' stores.

The next major step from Stobart, which is developing sea, air and rail freight business alongside trucking, is a chilled rail service from Valencia in Spain to the UK. The trains will travel through Eurotunnel carrying fruit, vegetables and salads to Stobart's container centre in Daventry in the West Midlands.

Stobart says the service will not just be cheaper and greener than trucking but should also eliminate waste for the retailers because the produce will arrive more quickly on their shelves.