Competitive edge for Schreurs & Sons

Running a competitive fresh produce business demands superior quality, greater efficiency, enhanced safety and, most importantly, reliable refrigerated transportation.

For Schreurs & Sons, the Maxi-CUBE Slide-a-Side Refrigerated Van from transportation equipment manufacturer MaxiTRANS delivers on all fronts.

Schreurs & Sons is a third-generation farming business that is 100% Australian family-owned and operated, specializing in celery, leek and baby leaf lines, including spinach, rocket and snow pea tendrils. With seven properties covering more than 1,000 acres, it is one of Australia’s largest suppliers of celery, and also serves international markets.

Chris Schreurs, director of business and commercial operations, takes pride in delivering high-quality products to customers year-round. His fleet transports fresh produce in Victoria, primarily between the business’ farms and the Melbourne wholesale market.

For Schreurs & Sons, two of its biggest challenges are operational efficiency and load security.

“As we don’t have loading docks on any of our farms, we need an efficient and safe solution that not only maintains the integrity of the produce, particularly on warm days, but also achieves minimal turnaround time between locations,” Schreurs said.

“Maxi-CUBE came highly recommended to us by our interstate freight partners, Consolidated Freight, and when we compared a Slide-a-Side to other equivalent options available, we believed Maxi-CUBE provided the best solution for our needs. MaxiTRANS’ willingness to work with us to ensure we obtained the most efficient setup and best use of the Slide-a-Side design was a great contributing factor.”

Schreurs praised the design process, which involved working through various door configurations that could deliver the most efficient results. “We believe the time spent on this task was well worthwhile as we are now benefiting from that final design,” he said. “Another special specification we added was a stainless steel floor. As our finished produce can come out of the fields quite wet, we went for a more durable floor to prevent rust settling in as we’ve experienced in the past with other trailers.”

Schreurs & Sons said the Slide-a-Side boosts productivity because loading is faster than with their previous curtain-sided trailers. “In addition, we elected to purchase a B-double set, which now takes our round trips from our main growing region in Tarwin, Victoria to our production facility in Clyde, from an average of three trips a day into two,” Schreuers added.

The produce supplier also highly rates the thermal efficiency of the trailer’s insulated roof, front wall, side walls and doors. “With the fridges up and running over last summer, we were very surprised with how well the thermal insulation worked on the Slide-a-Side,” Schreuers said. “It has exceeded our expectations in maintaining temperature control. So, they have done an excellent job there.”

Other highlights of the Slide-a-Side trailer are its sliding doors and its reliability, which is boosted by MaxiTRANS’ service network.

“I felt it wasn’t about a quick sale with (MaxiTRANS), but really more about finding the best solution to cater for our needs,” Schreuers concluded. “The process of final design was very thorough, and their guidance throughout the whole process and willingness to understand the needs of our business was a great experience.”