One trouble that comes with interstate transportation, especially when it comes to produce, is that winter doesn’t exactly stick around everywhere for the same length of time. Higher latitudes stay colder longer, the deserts of Western states experience both significant heat and exceptional cold depending on the time of day, and heavy blizzards along the East Coast are quickly becoming an annual tradition.
The Cost Of Inconsistency
Reefer trucks and trailers are designed to notice changes in temperature, and they can both heat and cool the interior as necessary, but the thing about driving north or south during winter, and particularly during late fall and early thing, is that you don’t really need a reefer truck throughout the whole trek. For at least some of the trip, the ambient temperature will be at just the right level that the A/C unit won’t have anything to do, and on either side of that span it still won’t be running at full capacity.
Running a reefer truck or trailer, even if it’s only for part of the journey, can translate into lost profits. If you’re renting the unit, you’re adding miles and hours during which the air conditioning isn’t doing anything useful, and if you own it then you’re wasting your reefer on a run when it might be more useful elsewhere, and all the while the unit is using up energy and demanding maintenance.
The Effective Alternative
When you don’t need the complete temperature control of a reefer unit, and especially when you don’t need it for the full length of a run, cargo blankets like ProtekCargo’s SureTemp line provide an inexpensive alternative. Like air conditioners, blankets work perfectly well in hot and cold climates, but unlike air conditioners they don’t demand any energy to operate. That translates into some significant savings when you switch to passive temperature control.
In addition, you can also choose to lease blankets instead of reefer units if you’re delivering within the continental United States. Our leasing program offers two different options for your company’s different needs: for a single shipment lease we’ll deliver our blankets to the origin point and pick them up from the destination free of charge, and for month-to-month leases we’ll let you hold onto our blankets and handle any cleaning and repair work that needs doing for free.
Your profits shouldn’t have to fluctuate with the temperature. And if you use the passive temperature control of cargo blankets, they won’t have to.
