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Past Issues

October 2005

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City Deep is Gauteng's refrigerated transport hub. Here you will find fresh produce and meat markets, processed food warehouses and several refrigerated transport depots. The fruit and vegetable market is a huge distribution centre, receiving produce from farms around the country (primary distributors trucking it in) and then shuttling it around the province in vehicles of various sizes. As we know, not all fresh produce needs to be refrigerated but there are some varieties that need very specific constant temperatures throughout the cold chain to prevent them from going bad. Paul Collings checks out the market at daybreak. 

It's 5.30 on a Tuesday morning. I take the Heidelberg Road offramp and in a few minutes I'm in the Fresh Produce Market, City Deep. It's chaos. Trucks, bakkies, cars and trolley-pushing, cart-pulling pedestrians are moving haphazardly across the numerous parking lots and warehouse forecourts. On the loading platforms are forklifts and pallets and people, all trying to get the job done on a not very wide deck. It's here that you see refrigerated transport in action. Reefer rants Before I've had time to stick my head into a reefer, I'm being yelled at by a forklift operator. "Nyakaza!" (move!). I do so, between the doors of a Denny Mushrooms van. The driver, Rufus Seabi, has driven from Randfontein in his 5 ton refrigerated rigid. "This truck is very reliable," he tells me, "and it keeps the mushrooms fresh, five degrees." I ask him if the fridge unit ever packs up. "We service them regularly and if one breaks, I just use another truck." Easy!

A FRUIT SALAD of transport vehicles (clockwise from top) Reefers run the length and breath of the country carrying fruit and vegetables for large retail outlets. Specialised meat carriers also make up the bustle of the market.

I jostle my way down the deck and round the corner to the banana warehouse. A Liebentrans reefer is waiting to collect bananas. Reaching for my cell phone, I dial the number painted on the side of the truck. Kooi Botha is the operations manager of Liebentrans, based in the Western Cape with depots in Johannesburg and Durban. He says Liebentrans is primarily a meat transporter servicing abattoirs and Pick 'n Pay. "We do run perishables for other clients but frozen meat and carcasses are the main products. Our reefers generally run single temperature loads; +2°C for fresh meat and -25°C for frozen."

I ask him what challenges he faces on a daily basis. "Delays at offload points are a big problem. We can spend hours waiting at a client's premises behind a queue of other vehicles. This throws out our schedule and means other customers are kept waiting." A generic problem, but there's more...

"Customers don't really understand the way a reefer works. They expect it to chill their goods from ambient temperatures. A reefer is not a deep freeze. It can't get product from +8° to -25°C. The refrigeration unit is there to keep a constant temperature, so clients must pre-cool their goods before they load them in our trucks," he says.

Liebentrans also faces the grim spectre of weighbridges. "We had seven vehicles standing at weighbridges yesterday for axle overloads. Fortunately, we were able to redistribute the loads and only one vehicle had to offloaded - a ton of meat. This is a big problem of course. You don't want meat standing out in the open. The cold chain is broken unless you send another refrigerated truck to offload into," says Botha. "Offloading at weighbridges also means breaking the seal which customers do not want because it leads to damages and fluctuations of temperatures."
 

Long haul pros and cons
My next stop is the City Deep distribution centre of Fruit & Veg City, the fresh produce retail group. Parked at the loading deck are four reefers unloading product. I watch forklifts negotiating a pothole-riddled path from deck to ground. They're unloading avos and paw paws with great dexterity. I meet Mike Richards, the warehouse manager. "We deal with a transport broker who gets the vehicles to collect produce from the farms," he says. "We have a fleet of trucks to deliver from here to our retail outlets." 

As it happens, this distribution centre for Fruit & Veg City only needs one refrigerated vehicle to service the Gauteng outlets. "The distances are relatively short," explains Richards, "so it's really only the pre-packed vegetables that need to be chilled. The rest are carried in tautliners and volume vans. If we need extra vehicles we source from a broker."

One of the trucks at the offload deck is a Volvo linked to a multi-temp Super reefer owned by Jackson Transport. Its driver, Gustav Muller, runs across the country and as far afield as Lusaka and Swaziland. "I can carry frozen meat and fish at -20°C in one compartment and bananas at +14°C in the other. Obviously the risks in transporting perishable goods long distance are high so it's very important to have a well-serviced unit. You don't want to be stuck in the middle of the Karoo when the temperature outside is 40°C and you're carrying strawberries worth R100 000."

I want to continue interviewing Muller but he's a busy man. "Got to get to Pretoria now," he says with a big grin, heading towards his cab. Richards looks on with just a hint of envy. "These guys love their work. They chuck their wives and kids in there along with the skottle and tour the country."

	IN NEED OF REPAIR Despite a damaged body and refrigeration unit, this reefer is still running products that aren't temperature critical.
	DENNY MUSHROOMS Mushroom man, Rufus Seabi, overseeing the off-loading of big black mushrooms.

Crash and smash
As Muller drives off into the rising sun, Richards explains why the tarmac on the loading area is so undulating and potholed. "There's a water pipe over there," he says, pointing southwards. "It burst weeks ago and the council took its time to fix it. The water has seeped into the sub-strata of our paving which weakens it considerably." 

I stand pondering the problem when a loud crash nearly blows my eardrums. Right next to me, a pallet-full of paw paws has fallen off a forklift and missed Richards and I by a whisker. Amazingly, the paw paws are undamaged, mostly. Richards hurries me into the warehouse for a tour of the cold rooms and then bids me farewell. 

By 8 am, the market is beginning to clear of traffic. I head back to my car and pop my head into a couple of reefers owned by well-known retail concerns. One is hooked to old Ford that looks like it hasn't moved in years and the other has a broken bulkhead. I ask the loader what happened. "The driver hit a bridge and broke the body and the fridge," he explains. I ask him if he's going to load anything today. "Of course," he says. "The show must go on. Yesterday it was carrying stoned fruit at +2° - today it carries pumpkin and potatoes."

Sliced and diced
Driving out the market, I pass the fuel station where truckers can get discounted diesel. I stop to photograph a bright yellow BC Carriers super reefer. It's a great looking truck and it's only then that I realise that all the big reefers I've seen this morning look good. They're clean and striking with company names proudly displayed. The smaller refrigerated vans aren't quite as smart but they aren't shabby by any means. After all, we're talking food here, not gravel. The message is clear: If you want to transport perishable foods, you have to play by the rules and there's a 'dress code' you have to observe. From what I observed at the market, it seems most are adhering to both the rules and the code.