July 17, 2020
Tips for Choosing & Evaluating a Food-Grade Carrier
Choosing the right food-grade carrier for your business’s needs can seem extremely overwhelming. Having a checklist on hand when evaluating and choosing a food-grade carrier for your bulk transportation needs is an excellent way to ensure that all your needs are being met.
Before diving into the following checklist, it’s important to have your basics covered.
What is a Food-Grade Carrier?
This is a shipping company that can safely transport bulk food and liquid across states to their final destination. Food-grade carriers are more than a simple shipping truck. Companies involved in the bulk transportation of food, liquid, and other dietary supplements have many rules and regulations that must be followed to complete their haul legally and safely for the sake of the consumers.
Some of the most important rules and regulations include:
- Sanitation regulations
- Food safety regulations
While your chosen carrier needs to be aware of and compliant with these regulations, your brand must be aware of them as well, especially when choosing your next food-grade carrier.
5 Things to Look for When Evaluating & Choosing a Food-Grade Carrier
Once you’ve refreshed yourself on the current food safety and sanitation regulations, you can start looking for a food-grade carrier that suits your brand’s needs.
Not sure where to start? Here are five things that you need to be looking for when evaluating and choosing your next food-grade carrier:
1. Services Offered
One of the first things you need to check into is the services provided by each food-grade carrier you are evaluating. Depending on the nature of your business, you may need a transportation company that can handle various types of freight. Having to turn to multiple carriers handling different projects can get costly. So, before you settle on any carrier, make sure they can work with you for all your business needs.
2. Reliability
When choosing a food-grade carrier, you should prioritize the reliability of the company you are evaluating. Reliability includes getting your shipment to its destination on time, intact, and ready for its next intended purpose.
To help in your evaluation process, make sure you are looking to see if each carrier brand you are evaluating has adequate reviews (positive ones of course!), a good rating through the better business bureau, and has a high level of service (LOS) score.
3. Contamination Prevention & Proper Sanitation Procedures
Transporting bulk food or liquid requires careful attention to sanitation rules and regulations. This is particularly true when it comes to contamination prevention. The FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) rule on Sanitary Transportation of Human and Animal Food took some time to finalize. However, it was finally put into place in 2018 and is one of seven rules proposed to create a more modern, risk-based framework for food safety in America.
Proper sanitation procedures must be followed by the shipper and driver to ensure that both human and animal food remains safe for their intended use. Part of this process includes regular washing and sanitizing of carrier trucks and ensuring that products are shipped in a method that prevents contamination.
This means that all packaging will remain intact, and pallets will be shipped safely to ensure they do not break during transit.
4. Compliance
While searching for your next transport solution for your business, you need to make sure they are following all the rules and regulations required of them. When it comes to food-grade carriers, they not only have to follow the FDA’s regulations for food safety but local regulations as well, which can vary by location (especially if transporting across state lines and/or internationally). This means you want to look into the carrier, their processes, the documentation they have on hand, and more to ensure that the carrier of your choice is following all food safety and quality bulk food-grade transportation guidelines.
5. Security
This plays a vital role in determining who to do business with, especially when choosing who you want to work with to transport your goods. Should something happen to your freight while it’s in the hands of the carrier, you could be out of quite a bit of money. So, when evaluating your choices in carriers, make sure they have adequate security measures in place not only to protect their workers but also your products both during storage and while out on the road.
Choose the Right Food Grade Carrier Team for Your Needs
Kan-Haul has been in the bulk, food-grade transport business for 30 years. That said, we have the experience, knowledge, equipment, and commitment to get your food-grade cargo where it needs to go safely and securely.
If your business needs a food-grade carrier, then contact us today or call our office at 1-800-959-9501.
