How to haul produce?

Potatoes are ripe when they come out of the ground... If they are not ripe when dug they will bruise in the digging process.

When kept at the right temperature and humidity potatoes will keep for a very long time (over a year). That driver F'ed up and set the wrong temp or the reefer quit and he didn't catch it.

Ive been around large scale potatoe farming since I was a kid, now I haul 40k + pounds of them every week from the Rockies to the mid west... That driver just plain F'ed up.

 

Old school,Load it like a boxcar,drive it like a race car.

 

Ain't that the dang truth.

 

I thrived on the Yakima to Boston Market run. Mainly Onions. pretty much 3000 miles in 6 days. Usually done in 4 to 5 provided nothing bad happens.

Getting back to Yakima, now that's the trip.

 

When i pulled reefer trailers. I use to pick up all over California, grapes, carrots, and every produce item that comes out of that state. Usually run either to East coast, or Florida, and backhaul to California, or Arizona.

 

Depending on type of trailer you have but it’s pretty straight forward, look what is says on instruction on BOL...

 

I picked up a produce load a few weeks ago. It was one of those places where you back up to the dock with the doors closed and they open them up inside the warehouse. I didn't notice until a few days ago that they scratched the crap out of my trailer top to bottom just in front of the doors on both sides from the motion of the forklift. It's a brand new trailer and really pissed me off.

 

Its all about temp control I've hauled it all from cheese and ice cream to apples, red peppers and frozen fries. generally fresh fruit and veg the temp is run at alot higher say around 60 f with chilled it really depends on what it is with cheese they usually run temps at 35 - 36 f fresh meats at around 45 f, with most frozen goods you should be running at about 0 f keep in mind when choosing to run your own trailers as some are designed for hauling chilled produce so temps from say 32f and higher where as a trailer designed for frozen will keep produce cooler at temps below 32 f. This is one of the big mistakes some companies make they buy chiller reefers cause they are cheaper then send the poor driver to haul a frozen load when you get to the cold storage warehouse they'll either make you prechill before you load or you'll be required to bring the temp down to a set temp after its loaded usually near that 0 f mark if you have a chiller reefer you'll have lots of fun trying to pre chill it to the specified temp. Just a tip if your having trouble bringing the temps down unhook the tractor from the reefer with the extra gap between truck and trailer it seems to help the fridge run a colder temp. I got stuck once out near the Oklahoma pan handle i'd loaded up with some frozen beef burgers and had to chill it down before they'd let me out the gate nothing I could do would bring it down below about 28f fortunately one of the other trucks was having issues with his fridge motor and had phoned a fridge mechanic to come fix it up after the mechanic left the driver gave me the same advice about unhooking the truck from the trailer at this point I was willing to do anything to get out of there so sure enough I unhooked and a miracle occurred that day the temps started dropping hoorah i said and within another 30 minutes I was ready to roll.

 

Let's say u pick up hot produce straight from the fields and they haven't been precooled, once u set ur temp to let's say 36, and u notice ur unit wont get below 58 degrees ( because the veggies u picked up was hot like 70-80 degrees). If it's been over 8 hrs and ur reefer still isnt cooling and wont go into defrost, u need to set ur temp to max heat around 88 degrees, the reason is because all the heat from ur produce has caused the evaporator inside the trailer to freeze up ( u may get a alarm code saying "low suction pressure"), once u set ur temp to max hot you'll start seeing alot of water drain from ur hoses and drain holes.

After the water stops ( about 30min) set ur reefer to the right temp and itll start cooling again, u may need to do this few times.

 

My add on is simple, clean trailer, precool trailer , I run mine down to about 15 or 20 degrees empty. keep doors closed till they give you a door number, back in , pull up open the doors then back to the dock.

A refer trailer is not for cooling the load, loading temp of the product is very important. If you load hot product your refer will freeze up trying to cool it down. If its not at temp, stop the loading and call in dump the responsibility on your dispatcher, get it in writting if they tell you to load hot.

The outside of the load willl cool down, but the center of the load will not, if you go to somewhere that temps the load upon receiving the load they will probably refuse. This time of year really pay attention to mellons, they like to bring them hot out of the field stick them into your trailer.

If they do load them hot, start your refer out warm and cool it down slowly to prevent freezing up the unit. you can walk it down, your going to get alarms, but that is better than freezing it up, and it shutting down.

Lots of info in this posting. good luck....