Manchester · Refrigerated transport
Wholesalers, central kitchens and food producers in Greater Manchester prepare their orders during the night. Our partner couriers in Manchester collect them as production ends or as the wholesale market opens, chilled or frozen, and deliver to restaurants, caterers, shops and supermarkets, from Salford to Stockport, before their doors open.
Our refrigerated rounds in Manchester
At New Smithfield Market, the largest wholesale market in the North West of England, any vehicle may be checked before it is let in. Our partner arrives with a body already at temperature, and its fridge unit keeps running during the check. They load your order straight from the wholesaler, when it is ready, from 2.30am at some, then set off without going through a depot.
A street in the centre such as Thomas Street, in the Northern Quarter, accepts vehicles only from 6am to 10am and from 6pm to 7pm. We put the handover for a café on that street into one of those windows, like every handover into the one its address allows, and our planning algorithms set the order of the round.
Manchester has two kinds of loading bay: some open to every vehicle, others reserved for goods vehicles, with hours that vary from one to the next. A refrigerated vehicle that delivers to a restaurant before dawn and then to a shop as it opens may not find the same bays open: we put each handover at a time when the address can take it.
Local rules checked in October 2026.
How we work
In Manchester, a refrigerated round fits between two moments: the end of production at your site, or the opening of the wholesalers at New Smithfield in Openshaw, and the time your customers open their doors. In between, each drop goes into the window its address allows (Thomas Street in the Northern Quarter, for instance, is open to vehicles only from 6am to 10am), and our planning algorithms set the order of the stops.
Before the first round, we agree the temperature range, the packaging and the delivery instructions for each address with you. The vehicle is reserved for your job and brought to temperature before loading; it goes from your central kitchen or your warehouse to your customers without going through a depot. It is almost always a round, and often a night delivery. Temperatures, logging and vehicles are set out on the page for our refrigerated transport, the service that makes up most of our work.
If a restaurateur is not there to take delivery, or a street is closed, our team decides with the courier what happens next, while your products stay in the body at temperature, then lets you know. You do not have to call each customer in the centre to find out whether their order has arrived.
If your goods do not need to be refrigerated, our same-day delivery in Manchester hands them over within the day, across the ten boroughs.
The service
These three commitments are the same everywhere we deliver. In Manchester, they are organised around night collections, the bus gates and the access hours in the centre.
Pre-cooling the vehicle, temperature at loading, handling instructions: our team agrees the necessary precautions with you and passes them on to the transport partners.
On your regular refrigerated rounds, data loggers track temperatures during transport. If there is a deviation or anything unexpected, our team coordinates the response with the carrier and keeps you informed.
Crates, boxes or pallets: Shippr brings in equipped partners for your volumes and your temperature needs, from 0–4 °C to 0–7 °C, or −20 °C for your frozen products.
One-off delivery or a round between your stores, shops and restaurants: we adapt the transport capacity, the frequency of stops and the loading arrangements to the way you work.
A carrier unavailable, a vehicle off the road or a rise in orders? The Shippr team finds a replacement that meets your temperature requirements and adjusts the organisation of your rounds.
We coordinate the changes with the partners and let you know the new times, to limit the impact on your supply and your customers.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, before 6am. On Oxford Road, the bus-only sections are closed to vans from 6am to 9pm only, so a round that crosses the centre earlier can use them. The bus gates on Deansgate, King Street, Portland Street, Princess Street and Bridge Street stay closed 24 hours a day, and our routes avoid them at any hour.
Filling a supermarket’s or a kitchen’s cold room sometimes takes time. In the city of Manchester, loading likely to last more than an hour needs a dispensation. Tell us when you book how long each of your handovers takes: we put it into the window its address allows, or we tell you then and there that we cannot keep to it.
Wholesalers there also open from 2.30am, but the market closes at 11am on Saturdays instead of 12.30pm on weekdays, depending on the business and the season. An order to collect late on a Saturday morning must therefore be ready earlier: tell us when you book what time your wholesaler prepares it.
It is possible when the volume calls for it, but not guaranteed: we tell you when we quote whether a lorry that size can run your round.
No. Greater Manchester dropped its planned charging zone for a clean air plan with no charge: a diesel refrigerated vehicle enters and delivers there without paying anything, whether before dawn or during the day.
Tell us what you carry, at what temperature, where your products start from and when each customer takes delivery. We will come back with the proposed vehicle, the order of the stops and the time of each handover.