Truck Fleets the Back Bone of an Operation

So today we had a good thunder storm roll through about 4pm est. Had a shelf of winds that I think could have reached 100mph. Big trees and stuff went down my neighborhood is a mess. Shortly after that, my phone beeped it was the boss asking a couple of us if we could go run a trailer to one of our "market place stores" for all of you who do not know GFS is the only major broad line food service distributor with it's own chain of grocery stores located in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Michigan and I think maybe one or two in West Virginia. Anyhow in Ohio were right in the epicenter for Market Place stores originally they were known as the GFS Cash and Carry in the 1970's, but I'm not going to get into that whole big history lesson right now.

Anyhow big storm comes through causes damage power's out everything. Well I get a bleep on my phone, can one of you run a trailer out to one of our stores the power is out and there refrigeration temperatures are starting to rise, not good. So I said sure I can and so I hoped in my van which is by the sale by the way if any of you are interested in a 2002 Chevy Astro LT van with all the bells and whistles please PM me for pictures. Any how I hop in my van avoid all the bad drivers and people who do not know how a 4 way stop works and get to our yard.

Any how checked the fuel levels on the refers and turned one on got it pre-cooled and hooked up all that jazz and headed out into the crazy traffic and all that JAZZ. Anyhow it dawned on me we do much more then just take stuff from here to there.

Anytime there's a problem the first department that gets called is transportation. We need trailers, we need trucks to warehouse the stuff, you can't run a big operation without trucks to do all the heavy lifting.

This is me at the store you can see the dark sky and the wet ground at the store brought the trailer out in case the power didn't come back on and then they would load the trailer and use it to warehouse all the food. That's an example of trucks being used to support and be the background of the operation.

 

Same here the store was happy I showed up power ended up coming back on, when I pulled into the parking lot, but none the less same deal the minute a freezer or cooler goes out first thing they do with in 5 minutes of learning it goes out is get on the phone and call up transportation.

 

We don't really do ours by seniority they kind of just send out a group text to the people who like to do extra's. Some guys at our yard like me love doing extra stuff others not so much. Actually I enjoy all the extra credit stuff a lot I have more fun with all that stuff then my regular routes LOL! Around 4th of July they had a bunch of extra volume work come up and I don't regret not trying to get in on it, but next time the extra volume stuff comes up I'm putting in for it. I try to keep my self doing all the jobs in the operation when they come up for me to do that way they know I've done them and can do them. I'm sure your the same.

 

Does Supervalue charge them a trailer rent fee or just say it's alright your good clients of ours it's on us.

 

Acme has there headquarters and warehouse on Gilchrist Blvd in Mogodor, Ohio, does Acme have there own private fleet can't say I've ever seen an Acme truck in recent time, of course Acme only has one store here in Cleveland there more Akron. What do they ship or receive at there warehouse in Mogodor?

 

This is probably a dumb question are you guys like Giant Eagle where you have both dry vans and refers and 53' and 48'? I think Giant Eagle has quite a few 48' trailers and now that I think about it I'm not sure if they have 53' or not, I'm sure they do, I know they have 48' for a fact.