Produce Loads

How much detention time are you getting?

 

Almost had a produce load once. Two months ago went to a cold storage place in Suffolk, VA. Arrived at 8am, sat all day until I had to leave at 2200 because they close the yard. Here its not that the stuff hadn't been picked yet, these were melons coming from Central America and the containers were late. They said come back in the morning, we'll have you loaded by 9.30. 9.30 came and went, we called the broker and dropped the load. I'm pulling out and driving down the road when they call and beg me to come back. They now realized they had a deal to get this load to a WalMart distribution center and no one to pull it. Boy was it fun to say "sorry...find another sucker".

 

I had appointments all the time and was normally empty in 3 hours.

BTW, Wal-Mart can kiss my big, white, untanned, truck driver butt.

 

Haul frozen in the summer the price almost doubles. I did the produce thing from Michigan to Texas and I ran into thr same problem. Call ahead and check to see if its ready and DON'T LOAD IT HOT.

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I was strictly referring to p/u aappts like the OP was discussing--not deliveries

 

Fortunately, there is a lot of choice in this industry and given the choice I'd load produce all the time. Just can't get west bound rates to speak of any more. I love the produce game. To each their own though.

 

Pride (which I think the OP drives for) doesn't pay detention on produce loads. Pick and drop pay per stop.

 

Yep, they only pay $30 per produce pickup and no detention on produce. It's the same thing for produce delivery too, $30 and no detention. It really sucks when you run team and have to split it. Luckily at Pride I hauled a lot of bulk produce loads so it was one pickup, usually only 2-4 hours to get it on the truck. There were definitely plenty of multi stop crappy days but usually it was a nice break from a lot of running anyways. One in particular in Watsonville I went to a lot pretty much guaranteed me a Sunday at the beach every time which was nice. They'd let me park the bobtail at the beach.

I hauled a lot of stuff for Kroger and that's usually what I had to wait the longest for. Had multiple coolers tell me that Kroger was so picky that they wait until the end of the day to try and get the best of everything that came in off the field so it wouldn't be rejected. So that's not necessarily true about the big retailers.

 

Definitely call ahead to make sure the stuff is actually ready to go on the truck! Weather also affects things. If it's raining, they probably aren't harvesting.

 

I love hauling produce. You only do it if you run long haul and for a mom and pop that has their own accounts set up. I can't remember any ridiculous delays no more than anything else. You want delays haul meat. But I love that too. I'd run reefer over van any day. Stay away from mega carriers if you run reefer.