Meat + Poultry - May 2008 - 65

DIESEL FUEL

continue to minimize costs for Cargill,
its carriers and customers."
Internal and external backhauls are
made to maximize CMS' fuel use. It also
has an in-house logistics company that
helps its carriers improve their efficiency. "We can provide backhauls to our
carriers utilizing not only internal Cargill relationships, but also freight from
outside shippers and our customers.
All parties benefit from drawing from a
larger freight pool," Meier says.
Company managers continue to look
for inter-modal opportunities within the
United States. "We do much more intermodal in Canada," Meier says. "Their
system seems to be more conducive
for this type of transportation. We will
continue to look for opportunities to
grow this segment."
Cargill is committed to decrease its
dependence on fossil fuels, Meier says.
"For about a year-and-a-half, Cargill has
used B5 bio-fuel in our Virginia fleet," he
adds. "To date, we've purchased more
than 31,000 gallons to run our fleet. And
we will continue to look for new ways to
reduce our eco-footprint across the company, whether that's through increased
use of B5 bio-fuel, trapping and burning
methane gases at our processing facilities or other new practices."

Fleet focused
Land O'Frost Inc., Lansing, Ill., processor
of the third-best selling brand of packaged luncheon meats in the country, operates its own fleet of trucks for delivering products to customers requiring less
than a full truckload of product.
"We own and operate our fleet of 46
tractors," says David Van Eekeren, executive vice president of Land O'Frost. "Our
drivers deliver the great majority of our
LTL [less-than-truckload] business."
The company distributes as much of
its branded products as possible to customers on its own trucks. "We know we
have better control over distribution this
way," Van Eekeren explains. "We also like
the fact that the first thing our customer
is going to see when getting a delivery of
our products is a Land O' Frost employee.
Part of our outstanding customer-service
70

MEAT&POULTRY

May 2008

record is due to the fact that we deliver
products from our own truck fleet."
Land O'Frost has earned a 99-plus
percent on-time, in-full delivery rate.
Its branded products are found in all
major markets and retailers around the
country and are sold in the supermarkets and mass merchandisers that account for nearly 90 percent of retail sales
in the country.
When asked how his company is contending with escalating fuel prices, Van
Eekeren says there are only two ways
to combat this: through innovation and
by becoming more efficient.
"We have to try and deliver the same
amount of product or more - but at a

"There are only two
ways to combat rapidly
rising diesel-fuel costs:
through innovation and
by becoming more
efficient."
lower cost," he says. "A company can
work on getting more throughput from
the same plant - use the same line to
get more pounds - and by loading more
density onto the same truck. We have
migrated our fleet from the standard
48-ft. trailers to 53-ft. trailers. At 53 feet,
you have more trailer volume to work
with. This requires a little more fuel to
pull, but proportionally it requires less
fuel because we have more of our product in the trailer.
"Other cost-reduction measures we
have taken include the introduction of
auxiliary power units on our tractors to
reduce idle time and super-single, widebased tires that replace conventional duals to save weight, add stability and reduce rolling resistance. We even warm
the maintenance shop by recycling our
spent oil through heaters."
Backhauling revenue helps the
company offset the expense side by
paying for some of the cost of bringing home the fleet each week. "It
doesn't allow us to break even, but it

www.MEATPOULTRY.com

sure helps," Van Eekeren says.
Advance Brands LLC, Edmund, Okla.,
uses owner/operators and common carriers to distribute its meat products, according to Eric Sweatt, transportation
manager.
"We have a great group of carriers
we utilize to deliver our products to customers." he says. "We work together to
create a partnership with each of our
carriers. We are making every effort to
deliver products to our customers in the
most efficient manner possible to keep
our costs competitive. We are continually evaluating our current methods vs.
alternatives to verify that we are being
efficient as we can."
Advance Brands also backhauls to
help defray fuel costs when shipping
products to customers.
Chicago Meat Authority conducts
most product shipping through common carrier, but operates one truck for
local deliveries. When asked how CMA
is contending with rising diesel fuel
costs, company president Jordan Dorfman says: "Competitive markets make
these additional costs hard to pass on
to the customers. We're trying to be
smarter about shipments, minimums,
delivery frequencies, etc. Our service
metrics haven't suffered, but our costs
to serve have risen."

Optimize efficiencies
What more can meat companies do in the
face of steadily rising diesel-fuel costs?
"I'd encourage all organizations to optimize internally to ensure their house is
as efficient as it can possibly be," Meier
says. "Then, collaborate with carriers and
other shippers to improve the overall efficiency of the supply chain. For example, extending delivery and loading times
will reduce truck idle time and improve
supply-chain efficiency.
"Another example would be to expand their freight network by collaborating with shippers and carriers to more
efficiently move freight throughout the
country."
We would like to hear from you - to comment
on this story or to request reprints, contact us by
e-mail at: meatpoultry@sosland.com.

http://www.MEATPOULTRY.com

Meat + Poultry - May 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meat + Poultry - May 2008