In Praise of Decent Shippers

Being the Grumpy Old Trucker that I am, I would find it very easy to write articles about the problematic shippers and receivers I encounter occasionally. However, that would only serve to fuel my Grumpiness and the problem spots would then by default, come out the winner.


Instead, I am choosing to highlight from time to time, businesses, which in my estimation deserve praise for positive and professional attributes. I was lucky enough to encounter one such business this week when I was sent to Nashville, NC to pick up a load.

Well, I didn’t exactly see Nashville, because Nash Produce is just a little over a mile off of I-95 and  the town of Nashville is 6 miles past that, but one couldn’t find a quieter or more peaceful spot.

Nash Produce has extensive warehouses and shipping facilities, specializing in potatoes and cucumbers.

From my arrival at the little office building you see here, and upon meeting Mr. Dickie Bass, Manager of Freight and Logistics according to his card, I was treated with cordiality and respect which is a rare thing to encounter these days.

First of all my trailer wasn’t the cleanest, having just delivered a bulk load of PEI potatoes the night before, and not having found a place to do a washout. Some shippers would have found this to be a good cause to give me a hard time, but not Mr. Bass. He merely pointed out the place where I was to back the trailer near the warehouse, close to the water hose.

There was some concern that the hose might be frozen as the temperature had taken a dip during the night, but that soon proved not to be a problem and Mr. Bass proceeded to wash out the trailer himself with a little assistance from me to haul the hose and turn the water on and off.

Prior to the washout Mr. Bass had recorded the empty weight of my rig as I drove across the truck scale, so now that the trailer was clean I proceeded to back up to the bulk loader which is a long conveyor apparatus which extends right inside the trailer.

The fork lift operator dumped the sweet potatoes, two bins at a time into the hopper of the bulk loader.

A short conveyor belt brought the sweet potatoes up from the large hopper into a smaller one at the back of the trailer.

From there the long extended conveyor carried the potatoes to the front of the trailer. As the pile grew high enough, the extended part of the conveyor was gradually drawn back to allow even distribution. At one point I needed to pull the truck ahead half it’s length to allow the back half of the trailer to be filed.

And that’s what a little over 20 tons (18 tonnes) of sweet potatoes looks like on the floor of the trailer.

Then it was time to weigh the truck again loaded, so as to calculate the net weight of the potatoes, have the paperwork printed out so I could sign it, and have the Canada Customs paperwork faxed to the border, all very capably handled by Mr. Bass.

All in all a very pleasant experience, and one which I hope to repeat again some day. See, I’m not always Grumpy.