Freight Lessons From the Front Lines of Produce Shipping With Colby Varley From ATS

When you’re shipping perishables like produce, the stakes are high; even a one-day delay can ruin an entire truckload of food.

Colby Varley, vice president and principal at Advanced Transportation Services (ATS), explains what’s going on in the perishable freight world and how logistics companies and shippers can work together to make sure every load arrives in perfect condition.

The state of perishable freight

The COVID-19 pandemic shook up the freight shipping industry, and now that things have settled, loading efficiency is the name of the game. Colby explains, “[During] COVID … they were shipping whatever they could, whether it was half a truck or a quarter of a truck. They were just shipping it. Since then, that trend has reversed. Now everybody is maximizing their cube space.”

But he’s seen a troubling pattern lately: certain types of produce haven’t been doing well, with some freight companies struggling to fill trucks.

“[For] the Mexican grape crop, they're estimating about a 2 million box loss out there. … [If] you take 2 million boxes out of the equation, that's a lot of trucks that aren’t going to get loads. … We've had trucks every week deadheading back to California to come pick up a load because there's just nothing there."

Finding your niche

Colby’s advice for freight companies? Choose a specialty and stick with it. “Stay in your niche, stay in your lane, and become the expert in that field, whether you're doing dry freight, doing bulk tanker, [or] doing flatbed.”

He uses ATS as an example: “The markets fluctuate all the time. But we just stay true to highly perishable food and produce.”

Why top-tier service is worth the cost

Growers looking for the best deal on freight shipping might be tempted to spring for a good deal. But low costs can come with risks, especially with cargo as volatile as fresh fruits and vegetables. According to Colby, great service is worth paying for.

“Service is the number one thing. And we do have to charge a little bit more for that. … On any produce shipment, the difference between being one day late is the difference of that produce making it through quality control [or] not.”

Links

• Connect with Colby on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colby-varley-5ba57a69/
• Visit Advanced Transportation Services’s website: https://advancedtransportationservices.com/