Flowers from South America are increasingly being enjoyed across the country. But what makes this beautiful distribution process possible? It’s all in an effective cold chain – one that allows exotic blooms to reach customers far and wide within their optimum time frame for maximum freshness and enjoyment. In short, timing is everything.
Krueger Wholesale Florist is committed to quality and freshness, maintaining a private fleet of trucks that take regular nonstop routes across the country – guaranteeing their flowers and plants stay as vibrant and fragrant on delivery day as they did when harvested.
Krueger Wholesale’s transportation arm, KW Transit, works like a well-oiled machine to ensure timely shipments. With a fleet of 18 drivers, they make 6-9 cross-country runs a week from Wisconsin to Miami and back and an additional 2 weekly runs to California and back.
In order to ensure their flowers and potted plants remain fresh in transit, the company has turned to the power of team runs to keep their cold chains tight.
By pairing a predictable route and five days of time off for each driver, this Wisconsin-based company has found success in providing both continuous product movement as well as abundant home time. Thanks to these rewards, they have been able to attract and retain top drivers.
In the current industry environment, where qualified drivers are in high demand, the company recognizes that team versus solo runs add an additional barrier to hiring. With this in mind, the company leans on its reliable business model, new equipment, and a thoughtful hiring process.
“Teams are harder to come by now than they used to be,” KW Transit Logistics Manager Sherry Klemm said. “Normally the drivers I hire come in solo and I marry them up based on their personalities.”
Klemm went on to say that after their drivers have made it into a routine and seen KW’s operations first hand, they rarely want to go back to solo driving. The key, she says, is earning drivers’ trust and letting them know you can take care of them.
“This affords them a life where you can stay on the road, but have time at home,” she says. “Many have said they don’t even feel like they need to take their paid time off because they have enough time already. It’s wonderful. Their life is so much better. They have actual rest when they get home.”
Asking drivers to pair up with someone else can be a big ask but thanks to Klemm’s innate ability to pair drivers together, KW Transit has found success in doing so. After 20 years’ experience at Krueger Wholesale, she’s adopted a long interview process that gives her a feel for driver preferences (such as day or night driving), personality, and ability. While she uses what she learns in interviews combined with her decades of experience, she still humbly claims she doesn’t actually know what her secret to successful pairings is.
For the team of drivers at KW Transit, comfort is key. The business puts an emphasis on keeping new, spec’d-out trucks out on the road to ensure peak performance and maximum driver satisfaction – even investing in quality mattresses. This year alone they exchanged their twelve Volvo Trucks VNL 860 sleepers for brand-new ones once reaching 500k miles; a move celebrated by every employee behind the wheel.
KW Transit’s drivers have been busily running dedicated routes since the 1960s, when Krueger Wholesale was established. This wholesaler has maintained intricate connections with reliable importers and vendors over the past five decades, ensuring their trips are never wasted on empty vehicles.
“We have vendors where we can come loaded and can be turned within an hour,” she says. “We’ve been very fortunate that there’s been no downtime when that team leaves our yard with that tractor and that tractor never gets shut off.”
Kreuger Wholesale is driven by a state-of-the art 150,000 sq. ft corporate headquarters and distribution center in Rothschild, Wisconsin – plus ancillary satellite operations at their KW Transit facility with its own service bay for maintenance.
Source: truckinginfo
