New Local Delivery Service - subship.co.uk

[tomszekeres]

Hi everyone,

Not sure if this is the right place - but wanted to announce that I'm launching a local delivery service for East Dulwich and surrounding postcodes (I live on Lordship Lane), and I'd love it if you'd give us a try.

Please do take a look at https://subship.co.uk - more than anything, I'd love your feedback.

So if you've got a few minutes, reply below and tell me:

- What are your first thoughts?

- What do you think of our initial range?

- Who else should we stock?

We're offering a weekly delivery of local, ethical goods. Dropped to your door, emission-free. Minimal plastic, maximum impact.

Starting with a small range of products - coffee, sourdough, toilet roll, beer, wine, hand sanitiser - we're hoping to expand out to work with nearly any local, independent business. But baby steps first!

Weekly deliveries start this Thursday, September 10th 2020 - and cutoff for orders is midnight Tuesday.

As well as SE22, we'll be delivering to SE5 SE15 SE21 SE23 and SE24 - even more postcodes coming soon.

Launch Partners Include:

🍸 Cocktails and Vermouth from Asterley Brothers

🍺 Pale Ale, Lager, and IPA from Brockley Brewery

🍻 Craft Ale from Canopy Beer Co

📰 Free Delivery of The Dulwich Diverter and Peckham Peculiar (with paid orders)

🧼 Peckham-made Hand Sanitiser from Hande

☕️ Coffee from Old Spike, helping reduce homelessness

🧻 100% Recycled Loo Roll from Serious Tissues

🧦 The London Sock Exchange - recycle your old socks for new

🍺 Villages Brewery - more wonderful beer

And coming soon we have:

👶 Kit & Kin - eco nappies and wipes

🍷 Peckham Cellars - organic and bio wine

Want 10% off your first order? Use code DULWICH10 at checkout.

Local supplier and want to get listed? We?re just getting started, and want to quickly expand the range of products (and even services) we can offer. Send a PM to start the conversation.

And also appreciate that this is a difficult time for a lot of people - as soon as we are able we'll be creating new jobs, paying London Living Wage as a bare minimum.

The pandemic has been hard on a lot of people and livelihoods - we want to create a service that supports local independent businesses, allows those who have the means to buy better locally, while creating meaningful employment for those without.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, and happy to answer any questions below.

[bels123]

This looks like a great initiative, good luck!

[northernmonkey]

This sounds great. Could you tell us a bit more about the emission free delivery please?

[womanofdulwich]

use pedal me etc to deliver? that would work well

[tomszekeres]

@bels123 - thanks!

@northernmonkey - sure thing! We?re really passionate about reducing local air pollution, as well as the wider problem of climate change. One of my daughters has chronic lung disease of prematurity, so we?ve got skin in this game - we want to do as much as possible to help in the transition away from fossil fuels.

Diesel in particular is causing untold damage to lungs young and old - just ask anyone shielding with COPD right now - and I?m honestly really frustrated at the pace of change.

So we decided this is a hill we?re going to die on - we?re never going to use fossil fuels to deliver.

In our first week of deliveries, we didn?t have quite enough volume to justify hiring an electric van, so we decided to use an electric Zipcar. As I was doing the collection round (we start the day by visiting our suppliers to collect, ready to deliver) I got a call from Zipcar HQ.

The news? They were really happy to have me sign up, but they?re not insured for deliveries.

We had to return the eGolf after collections, and rethink how we were going to deliver in the afternoon.

So I had three possible choices - a) ignore the lack of insurance and do deliveries via Zipcar at my own risk, b) use a petrol car I had access to, or c) deliver all 40kg of deliveries on foot.

I went for c.

Sometimes you need to do something a little crazy to prove you walk the talk.

I needed the exercise anyway.

?

This Thursday coming we?ll be experimenting with cargo bikes - I believe we?re going to be donating some money to a local cycling charity in return.

And as we grow, we know we?re going to add electric vans to the mix - they?ll likely be the powerhouse of our business.

I?ve been lucky enough to bring on board Gemma Neal, who quite a few years back helped Farmdrop bring electric delivery in-house - so we know from her experience that (realistically) for bulkier orders (which so far seem to be quite typical) we?ll need to use something like the Nissan EV200.

But unlike Farmdrop (after Gemma left), we?ll never compromise and end up using Diesel vans - in the mid- to long-term our bet is going to be on Green Hydrogen delivery (if we make it that far!).

Appreciate that may be too much information, but hopefully will reassure! :)

[tomszekeres]

We briefly talked to Pedal Me this week about this - I think we?ll very likely use them when we?re a bit short of capacity, which we?re hopeful will happen soon! Love what they?re doing :)

womanofdulwich Wrote:

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> use pedal me etc to deliver? that would work well

[Listen up]

I used subship for coffee and some household supplies a couple of weeks back, and found them very friendly a welcome addition to the area, and extra added bonus of eco-conscious deliveries.

[Jakkers123]

We bought Old Spike coffee and Kit & Kin nappies from Subship the other week which was super. We found it really convenient and we felt like we'd helped local businesses and the environment with their eco deliveries. Nice one Tom!

[northernmonkey]

Thanks for the update on deliveries - its a shame to hear that you're not doing wholly cargo bike deliveries - would have thought that a smaller local operation would be well placed for that, EVs are immeasurably better than diesel but the fact is we need fewer vehicles on our roads and EVs do nothing for PM2.5 emissions. E cargo bikes have great capacity and feel like a missed opportunity here.

[Earl Aelfheah]

Good luck with this. Nice initiative

[tomszekeres]

@northernmonkey - thanks for your reply.

It's quite a difficult one, because there's lots of things we need to balance. I'm just about to head out to do our East Dulwich, Dulwich Village, Nunhead, and Forest Hill deliveries by electric cargo bike after a successful stint last week. Was really enjoyable (except for when the battery ran out just as I was going up an 11% hill - I've not made the same mistake this week, is fully charged!).

So we'll definitely keep using cargo bikes where it fits with routing and order sizes.

But in the morning, when we do our collections, the products are quite hefty (crates of beer and wine, in particular), so we use EVs to collect from our suppliers.

And where we have customers en route (which tends to be in Peckham and Camberwell), it's more efficient to deliver as part of the collection round, rather than heading back to base multiple times and heading back out again.

northernmonkey Wrote:

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> the fact is we need fewer vehicles on our roads and EVs do

> nothing for PM2.5 emissions.

I'm curious to know how EVs do nothing for PM2.5 emissions - diesel (and to a lesser extent petrol) vehicles emit black carbon and NOx (both of which kill people), whereas electric cars and vans don't.

Electric vehicles are slightly heavier (because of the battery), and so resuspend more black carbon and combustion-derived particles that are on the roads than ICE vehicles, but the more we switch delivery vehicles to EVs, the fewer of these there will be.

And EVs use regenerative braking, which counteracts the excess weight (we use cruise control to ensure less stopping and starting).

While it's very likely the particles created by braking are harmful (whether ICEV or EV), it seems very unlikely they are as toxic as combustion-derived PM2.5 or NOx. Or have I got that wrong?

--

Tom Szekeres

https://subship.co.uk

[northernmonkey]

Thanks for coming back on this one Tom.

I?m not an expert on this by any means but based on articles i read the road / tyre wear regardless of power type seems relatively constant so whilst you lose the tailpipe emissions you do still have the particulate matter issues:

https://www.rics.org/uk/wbef/megatrends/natural-environment/changing-how-we-travel--part-1-the-car-can-no-longer-be-king/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S135223101630187X

More generally, the congestion issues that are such a problem won?t be addressed by using evs, we need fewer motorised vehicles on our roads so to the extent that a smaller local delivery firm could use proper cargo bikes with e assist the impact would be reduced on both counts.

Whilst it?s great to see you thinking about this upfront and addressing it head on, and whilst I?d agree that moving away from ICE to EV where vans are necessary is good, it would be great if a van turned out not to be necessary in this context. Understand though that the solution needs to work commercially too.

tomszekeres Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> @northernmonkey - thanks for your reply.

>

> It's quite a difficult one, because there's lots

> of things we need to balance. I'm just about to

> head out to do our East Dulwich, Dulwich Village,

> Nunhead, and Forest Hill deliveries by electric

> cargo bike after a successful stint last week. Was

> really enjoyable (except for when the battery ran

> out just as I was going up an 11% hill - I've not

> made the same mistake this week, is fully

> charged!).

>

> So we'll definitely keep using cargo bikes where

> it fits with routing and order sizes.

>

> But in the morning, when we do our collections,

> the products are quite hefty (crates of beer and

> wine, in particular), so we use EVs to collect

> from our suppliers.

>

> And where we have customers en route (which tends

> to be in Peckham and Camberwell), it's more

> efficient to deliver as part of the collection

> round, rather than heading back to base multiple

> times and heading back out again.

>

> northernmonkey Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > the fact is we need fewer vehicles on our roads

> and EVs do

> > nothing for PM2.5 emissions.

>

> I'm curious to know how EVs do nothing for PM2.5

> emissions - diesel (and to a lesser extent petrol)

> vehicles emit black carbon and NOx (both of which

> kill people), whereas electric cars and vans

> don't.

>

> Electric vehicles are slightly heavier (because of

> the battery), and so resuspend more black carbon

> and combustion-derived particles that are on the

> roads than ICE vehicles, but the more we switch

> delivery vehicles to EVs, the fewer of these there

> will be.

>

> And EVs use regenerative braking, which

> counteracts the excess weight (we use cruise

> control to ensure less stopping and starting).

>

> While it's very likely the particles created by

> braking are harmful (whether ICEV or EV), it seems

> very unlikely they are as toxic as

> combustion-derived PM2.5 or NOx. Or have I got

> that wrong?

>

> --

> Tom Szekeres

> https://subship.co.uk

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Would an old milk float be an option - there must be second hand ones knocking about?

[tomszekeres]

Peckhamgatecrasher Wrote:

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> Would an old milk float be an option - there must

> be second hand ones knocking about?

This would be a great idea, but they're pretty expensive. Loads seemingly available though!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313&_nkw=electric+milk+float&_sacat=0

Milk floats were way ahead of their time though - electric vehicles, reusable containers, direct to consumer. Supermarkets have a lot to answer for!

[tomszekeres]

northernmonkey Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/

> pii/S135223101630187X

Thanks for this - I've definitely learned a lot more from having this conversation, and questioned some of my assumptions.

But, at the risk of sounding conspiratorial, we know that many companies involved in the fossil fuel economy hire PR agencies that use shady tactics.

They muddy the waters as a way of delaying change. This strategy was very effectively used by tobacco companies in the 1950s and 1960s (science proved that smoking was harmful in ~1955 - it's a myth that we didn't "know" until much later - it's just that the PR agencies were so effective at sewing the seeds of doubt).

So back to this paper - I'm suspicious about it, because it contradicts a lot of what I learned from reading Tim Smedley's "Clearing the Air" (to write that book, he read all of the literature so the rest of us didn't have to).

The paper you shared has got a corrigendum on it - one of the authors had to withdraw their supposed association with the University of Edinburgh, and also failed to declare a conflict of interest - a potential red flag.

Although, like you, I'm not an expert, I firmly believe that Electric Vehicles are part of the solution, and that the perfect is the enemy of the good.

We definitely want to include cargo bikes as part of the mix, and never say never - we'll continue to do a large proportion of deliveries using them over the next few weeks. We'll see how we go.