Refrigerated ltl.....true ltl modeling??s

In order to be successful in the LTL market you need to be able to accept whatever they throw at you...whether it be scheduling, capacity, or just plain great service. With 15-20 pallets from a broker you will be hard pressed to make a go at this market. Some shippers only hand out freight through a broker, but they still keep the good stuff for the guys that have been doing this for a long time. Depending on the shippers I have (say the lowest paying ones) on with a 20 pallet spot load and going to NJ that load would probably only pay $2.30-2.50 a mile...very not worth it. Throw in the extra stops and pallets the rate jumps up a lot...say the $4+ a mile range. Add in the extra pay for unloading and things get better. It is just a lot more work than you can even imagine. Also you need to understand that some things can not be hauled together. Say hauling ice cream with pretty much anything cooler. That ice cream needs to be about -10 or colder for many recievers to not throw a fit. Even with a bulkhead almost closed shut the rear will get pretty cold. Seafood is another issue. The smell can penetrate plastic packaging causing it to be rejected. All LTL freight is specialty in my mind just due to the time and shipping/recieving constraints. One thing to take into consideration is that the LTL market is pretty good right now due to the economy being bad. More places do not want to have inventory sitting around so they order less product more often. They don't realize that shipping costs are eating them alive cause they only look at the inventory costs.

It is a very good deal I got and it's only possible cause of the carrier I am leased to. They handle all the scheduling of pickups, routing, billing, and a few other things. I just have to help with pickups, minor routing/scheduling of my deliveries, and loading/unloading my trailer. This type of work pays very well, but like I posted earlier...you need a reputation or someone with a great reputation to vouche for you. I suggest you find a LTL carrier to lease onto so you can get a better understanding of the refridgerated markets. Never dealt with either one, but drivers and o/o seem happy over at Zeller and WEL (Wisconsin Express Lines). They are both LTL reefer carriers.

 

I meant that getting LTL going on a specific lane is hard. Most want to give all the LTL to one or two companys and be done with it. It can be done though. We run two lanes,both TL and LTL,out and back,the other LTL's we broker.

 

You are totally right on this. The majority of shippers I go to want a single carrier to come in, load all the LTL at one time (or a couple different times if there is more than one full trailer load), and cross dock the shipments at the carriers own docks. This is becoming the norm and a huge service selling point in the industry.

http://www.zellerllc.com/index.html

FFE is a big fleet playing in the LTL field, but they can not keep quality drivers or office people. They do have a very horrible record of customer service. TO be honest we have lost a couple customers to FFE in the past and after a couple months (sometimes just a couple missed deliveries) the customers come back. One customer I deliver to pretty consistant will not let FFE deliver to his facility ever again.

Sorry, I won't post who I am leased to casue I do not want them getting flooded with phone calls/applications. I am not ashamed of them by any means or vise-versa. Plus in order to get a foot in the door here a person needs a referal to even get the application looked at (unless the persons reputation is already known). They have freight going out to all 48 states every week.

 

We do the LTL different than you do. Actually just backwards. We have DC's that we bring the whole area into and then distribute out of the DC with straight trucks(along with our own product) We may do a few stops on the way but nothing that the truck isn't MT @ 2 days(east) Some of it may go east and come back west partway on another truck if the delivery works right.

 

I used to be leased with a carrier out of Green Bay. ( meat hauler) They have a load out of one of the plants in Nebraska we used to run to MRS on the north side of Milwaukee. Maybe this would be a place to consider, maybe not. I know nothing good or bad about them. I just know the load we took in there went everywhere. There would be stuff on it going north, south, east, west.