Dubai-based GORICA Group’s approach to its trailer operations can be seen to mirror that of the UAE’s successful initiative when dealing with other nations.
The oil-rich nation has cleverly used its reputation as a trading hub at the crossroads of society to forge lasting and rewarding partnerships and ventures with a myriad of countries to exponentially grow the small Middle East nation.
Throughout the course of its operations GORICA has reached out companies in various companies, seeking to utilise their respective expertise in a range of allied industries – from Oil and Gas, general cargo trailers, dry bulk semi-trailers, road tankers semi-trailers, concrete mixers, refuse collectors, to semi-trailer tipper bodies.
The company that started almost four decades after the formation of the UAE, has taken a leaf from its host’s playbook, and is reaping the rewards of a forward-thinking approach to business growth, through strong and lasting partnerships and collaborations.
The UAE is renowned for its approach to business and commerce – do it with complete focus and with passion. GORICA has taken the same approach to its burgeoning business operations – do it with a passion for trailers and innovation.
The latest stage of development for the Dubai-based company has seen it combine its approach to innovation with another market leader – in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia).
GORICA’s leveraging of cutting-edge technology, coupled with industry expertise, and a commitment to quality, has seen it provide tailored solutions for operational efficiency, enhanced value, and long-term success of its partners across cold chain logistics of perishable goods.
Hence, its market presence has grown to where GORICA Industrial KSA was appointed in November 2024 as official authorized dealer for Thermo King’s operations in Saudi Arabia. Thermo King is a world-leading manufacturer of cooling units for the transportation industry.
The appointment comes after the GORICA Group signed an OEM strategic partnership agreement in 2023, for GORICA leading refrigerated semi-trailers/bodies, THERMO KING cooling units and PALFINGER tail lifts to be supplied across the Middle East Africa (MEA) region, as a fully integrated end-to-end solution.
For GORICA Chairman and founder, Ivan Fornazaric, the agreement with Thermo King KSA is another piece in the company’s vision to further expand and grow as leading MENA developer and manufacturer of a complete range of trailers, tankers and more.
“This close partnership means a lot for both partners, as innovation and market leaders. Together, we offer fully integrated solutions for perishable goods transportation as turnkey solutions,” he said.
“This is a special recognition for the GORICA Group allowing also horizontal market penetration and for Thermo King it means additional market share growth in Saudi Arabia and the ability to tap into new market segments where GORICA is strongly present, including Pharma and institutional clients, such as the UN, UNICEF, the Red Cross and the defence sector.”
GORICA’s General Manager of Sales and Marketing, Domen Bockor said: “It’s a positive, disruptive strategy of traditional, legacy channels as markets have evolved from sell-buy process to solution-based sales, focusing on total cost of ownership.”
As an authorised Thermo King dealer, GORICA will provide the following services to its partners and clients:
- Supply of the new Thermo King cooling unit, including mounting and commissioning for all the refrigerated bodies, refrigerated semi-trailers and special application temperature-controlled bodies/trailer.
- Full warranty support and repairs, as per Thermo King’s international warranty policy.
- Aftersales service.
- Genuine spare parts supply.
- Client/operator training.
- All connectivity and telematics for Thermo King solutions.
- Fleet maintenance contracts.
Bockor said the partnership with Thermo King is creating a ‘winning formula’, comprising “the integration of products and services, such as connectivity services, extended warranty programs and maintenance agreement bundled in single client package”.
Fornazaric said GORICA was leading the field with its approach to innovation in refrigerated transport.
“We are also pioneering electrification and sustainability in the Middle East with a new line up of Thermo King solutions, such as e-cooling units and e-powered solutions that we successfully launched in January 2025,” said Fornazaric.
GORICA’s expanding presence in Saudi Arabia has meant it now has a greater foothold in the Middle East market, with Fornazaric noting its refrigerated semi-trailers market share in the GCC countries, including Saudi Arabia, is now between 65-70 per cent of all newly sold refrigerated semi-trailers, excluding second-hand imports from the EU.
“GORICA’s market share is predominately driven by our technical specifications with GRP skin single piece, seamless insulated panels with no joints, and our five-lip gasketing system. The combination with Thermo King’s cooling unit makes a natural choice focused not only on CapEx, but also OpEx with the lowest total cost of ownership in the industry. In addition, our award-winning after sales support is a key element in the growing market share,” said Fornazaric.
The collaboration between the GORICA Group and Thermo King has been a symbiotic meeting of minds, harnessing innovation in refrigerated transport to meet communities’ needs for fresh, safe and lasting products, such as food and medicines.
Domen Bockor said it was both companies’ recognition of these needs, coupled with growing sustainability requirements, that has proven to be a winning combination.
“The demands on the sustainability of transport are increasing and with rising costs of diesel and fuel, even in the Middle East along with strong transportation sustainability initiatives in Saudi Arabia, the demand for innovative green solutions is fuelling demand,” said Bockor said.
“This requires pioneers, like GORICA to be the first in the MEA region to develop innovative solutions. It is another proof that teamwork and partnership approaches in our industry are the key to success.”
This productive partnership has already bore fruit, with the launch of the MEA region’s first e-powered refrigerated semi-trailer, developed in conjunction with BPW axles, and which has been sold to Almarai, the largest dairy manufacturer in the MEA region and one of world’s largest.
In a huge win for the Saudi-based dairy giant with interests across the GCC, the new production saw the innovative BPW axles and Thermo King’s cooling unit/battery pack solution installed on a GORICA refrigerated semi-trailer, bringing sustainability to a new level by eliminating the use of fossil fuels to run the cooling system, thereby producing energy with zero consumption of diesel.
At the forefront of the design and development process, which took GORICA’s design and engineering teams almost a year to complete with the Thermo King and BPW engineering/product teams, was to create a trailer that would operate effectively in the Middle East’s harsh weather conditions. Collaboratively, the teams were able to overcome any obstacles, driven by GORICA’s ‘passion for trailers’.
Additional paramount factors for a viable solution were sustainability, with reduction and/or elimination of fossil fuel to run the cooling system, the reduction of CO2 emissions and the ROI for all stakeholders.
The finished product saw the combination of the new e-powered axles and a complete 34kW battery pack integrated into the 16 metre-long, GORICA trailer chassis. The trailer itself broke new ground in that it was almost three metres longer than standard trailers in Europe.
Bockor described the three-way venture as a “natural choice to combine heads of all three partners and bring the solution that market was calling for”.
“We truly believe that sustainability, in order to be accepted by the market, must be commercially viable and not only as a marketing tool,” said Bockor.
“This is crucial in all GORICA Group innovations and development. All this has been also achieved without any impact on payload due to innovative chassis design despite there is additional 34kW double battery pack and extra generators on drive axles.”
For the GORICA trailers, e-power is used in a new axle module developed by BPW which converts wheel rotation into energy and temporarily stores it in a backup battery before feeding it into the system, as needed. This enables a carbon-neutral, quiet supply of power to the Thermo King refrigeration units for temperature-controlled transport.
Two generators are used to provide double the power and reliability, while intelligent energy management ensures that the Thermo King cooling system always has access to sufficient battery reserves – even on long journeys or in traffic jams. Recuperation (i.e. braking) also recovers lost energy and feeds it back into the system and, crucially, a major bonus of the new e-power system is it does not carry current until it is inputted by the inverter. Moreover, the two generators only supply the amount of energy that is really needed at any given time.
One of the most significant benefits of the new system is the saving of up to 4,000-litre fuel and 10 tonne of CO2 per annum, per trailer. Other key features of the new E-powered trailer include the following:
- Reliable, independent power supply for fully electric or hybrid refrigeration units.
- Self-charging on the road – no logistics operational changes.
- Intelligent energy management and efficient operation.
- 3-4 years’ ROI.
- Two axle generators for double power.
- More (failure) safety redundant system.
- Generators for long life out of the automation area.
- Equal torque on both wheels (equal wear).
- No differential meaning more efficiency and higher effectiveness.
- Safe disconnection in critical driving situations (e.g. EBS).
- Four operating modes for optimum adaptation to the respective driving situation.
- Generator power adapted to demands and the driving situation, avoiding additional consumption as much as possible.
- Full-autonomous supply.
- No additional maintenance intervals.
- Hybrid or full-electric refrigeration units.
- Battery autonomy (8 hours).
- Real-time monitoring for status information, geofence and fault diagnosis via Thermo King tracking system.
- Future proof investment and competitive TCO.
With GORICA’s e-powered trailer in operation since February 2025, the scores on its performance have already been extremely impressive.
Feedback from field tests and the first year of commercialisation has been that end-customers of the trailers have had their expectations met, reporting great ease of installation and use at the unit level, as well as ease of use at the fleet manager level for tracking and organisation of delivery journeys.
Strong performance with refrigeration and energy usage, coupled with quiet operation and reliability, were also reported. While the ease, or lack, of maintenance scored highly with the system’s end-operators.
“We are thrilled with the performance and the results. Basically, not a single litre of diesel was consumed to power the Thermo King Advancer A500 cooling unit that is used on GORICA 16 metre-long refrigerated semi-trailer,” said Fornazaric.
Its latest foray into Saudi Arabia may be seen as a game-changer for the refrigerated transport industry, but for GORICA the need for constantly innovating and evolving never stops, as the increased development and expansion of the GCC region continues to drive new technologies in the transport industry that are focused on sustainability.
As with the growth of nations like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman in the region, GORICA’s own growth appears to be going to greater heights.
“Throughout the years as a leading developer and manufacturer of transport solutions in the MEA & GCC regions, the GORICA Group has launched several innovations in the commercial vehicle transport industry,” said Fornazaric. “We have already new projects in the development pipeline now, more than even focused on electrification, telematics and hydrogen in cooperation with our OEM European partners.”
