"We will do whatever it takes for our customers to be successful; it is the key to our success as well,” says Ted Brozanski, CEO of Lake Trucking.

Logistics is a highly stressful industry, and companies do need a partner like Lake Trucking to mitigate the predicaments they face each day.

Fifty-five percent of Lake Trucking’s transported goods are highly perishable, including imported fresh seafood from South America and other parts of the world. They are often faced with changes caused by delays in airline arrivals of the product, labor shortages, and weather. Lake Trucking has built a logistics system that allows flexibility and overlap in geographic routes to serve customers without interruption, even when a product is delayed.

“We have an advantage due to our size and available resources, and have built a service area and network to do this with little stress or added expense,” says Brozanski.

Lake Trucking became the first refrigerated SQF-certified carrier in the U.S. in 2016, which ensured that clients like big box retailers, grocery store chains, major food service companies, and wholesale seafood companies recognize that it can handle highly perishable seafood easily. Its inbound freight (backhauls) is highly perishable fresh products shipped to similar customers who want safe quality food delivered by an SQF carrier.

Lake Trucking’s team is staffed 24/7/365 to monitor the temperatures in trailers during transit. It relies on Thermo King’s TracKing system to provide live data. It partners with Ryder for maintenance on reefer trailers and Thermo King nationwide for repairs on the road. It has been with Ryder for over 26 years and has a captive shop fully staffed with qualified techs and a full-time service manager.

Ryder operates seven days per week, allowing Lake Trucking to get the trucks in for service and repair without delay. It operates an average of 225,000 miles per year per tractor, so the frequency they have to perform normal maintenance is twice as often as a standard fleet.

Lake Trucking has seen a significant increase in the cost of equipment in the past two years, so it has designed a replacement schedule to try to replace 25 percent of the fleet every year. It operates the newest trucks on the longest routes and then rotates them annually to the next group, and eventually, the oldest tractors operate only in Florida.

“This program also ties well with our partnership with Smartway” Brozanski says. By running the most fuel efficient vehicles on the longest routes our company has been in the top 10 companies out of the 4000 companies that partner with Smartway for best fuel economy and greatest reduction in our carbon footprint.

This reduces Ryder’s costs because Lake Trucking operates the most miles during the lowest life cycle of the new tractors and then reduces the number of miles during the highest maintenance life cycle. It works directly with Ryder’s OTR Breakdown system (RCRC) when a truck does have a mechanical issue on the road.

Lake Trucking realized long ago it could not be all things to all people or companies. So, its service area is the mid-west to the Rockies and everywhere in between. This allows the company more flexibility to be the partner of choice for customers. Your company can have the best product in the world, but if you cannot get it to market on time and under the extremely high standards as set for under SQF standards, it has no value at all.