Founded by Emil Serafino with an eye toward product quality and safety, The Exp Group has forged an impressive network of production, importation and distribution that meets the company’s high standards and exceeds market requirements. For Emil’s son, Executive Vice President Anthony Serafino, this past year has also been about company growth and the evolving business.

“2020 has been a year about steady and controlled fiscal growth,” he says. “Ownership and all top executives at this company feel that it’s our fiduciary responsibility as a business to position our company for the ever-changing landscape that is the produce and food industry.”

The past year has been an interesting and tumultuous one for a lot of people, he says, but more importantly it’s been a year of uncertainty regarding produce and food trends. One of the biggest changes he’s seen is the consumer’s ever-evolving desire to be more health-conscious.

“Unfortunately this pandemic has affected people of different ethnicities and different economic backgrounds — it doesn’t discriminate,” says Serafino. “People want to have an overall healthier lifestyle. We’ve taken good nutritionists and products and put them at the forefront of the retailer. We’re positioning our businesses to invest in produce that is rich in minerals and nutrients and overall is good for your body.”

The Exp Group’s commitment to staying contemporary means investing in its supply chain to ensure its consumers, customers, and clientele are properly supplied with the best — and healthiest — produce from around the world. And this also means all-natural.

“These are not supplements that are genetically produced, these aren’t GMOs,” says Serafino. “This is traditional produce that we’re distributing.”

The company’s dedication to continually adding SKUs and its business model of reaching different retailers has led to larger wholesalers saying they like The Exp Group’s mission and the culture they’re building around produce, and subsequently want to buy that produce to distribute and sell in their own stores.

“It facilitates our growth to believe in what you sell, and that starts from the top,” Serafino says. “It starts from not only the principals and ownership of this company, but high-level executives and anyone who works for us. We’re a team here and everyone needs to breathe the same brand mission because in this industry it’s not just people that sit behind a desk or people that drive our produce to different clients and customers, or pack our produce. It’s not just here at the facility in North Bergen, New Jersey; it’s all our suppliers around the world.”

That trickle-down mission mentality is how the company has facilitated its growth and upheld its core statement values.

“There are three things we preach at this company: common sense, character, and creativity. Those three Cs embody one big C, and that’s culture,” says Serafino. “That’s so important for us because a produce company is a brand, but more importantly it’s products that everyone can get behind.”

Serafino loves his work in part because of his belief in the knowledge that people around the country of different ethnicities and backgrounds are connected through their need for and love of food. “It doesn’t matter where you’re from, where you live – there’s a very high percentage you consume fruit and you consume vegetables.”

Embracing the culture of the company has also meant protecting employees whenever possible. This past year there were no layoffs, and in fact, new employees have been hired. Despite the uncertainty the pandemic has wrought, The Exp Group has managed to pull together and move steadily forward.

“Everyone is important here,” Serafino says, “not only the ones that sit behind a desk but the ones that are out in the warehouse, the ones delivering our merchandise at 5:30 in the morning, the ones coming back from the port picking up merchandise that we import. In this business you have a slew of different people.”

Continuing to invest in people means the company can also continue to invest in business, and that business means investments, primarily in some different commodities in Mexico. Along with the Mexican Maradol papaya, there is also a focus on avocados and Roma and Plum tomatoes.

“You’re seeing a lot of people come to this country from different parts of the world and Mexico is obviously a country we’re seeing a lot of immigration from,” he says. “As people move, they bring their culture and what they eat with them. That’s very important that we as a company stay contemporary and ahead of the changing climate in the changing demographics of this country.”

Changing demographics means, for example, more Americans consuming food like a yuca instead of a starchy potato. Yuca is a healthier option, says Serafino, and public knowledge and awareness and becoming more health-conscious leads to different, previously unfamiliar food choices.

“When uncertainty really hit early in the second quarter of 2020, I saw a lot of people consuming a lot of ginger. Why is that? It’s very good for your immune system. It’s very good to fight inflammation in your body. Turmeric is another very good source of that. Americans were [becoming] more conscious of what they were putting in their bodies.”

Along with diversifying its investments across the world, The Exp Group has invested in its trucking company, EXP Logistics. The company owns and operates 40 trucks in order to facilitate growth, delivery and access to the supply chain for customers.

“We’re growing, we’re packing, we’re shipping, we’re distributing and we’re delivering your produce on time,” Serafino says. “If we handle all aspects of the supply chain we can control the quality of the produce better.”

It is also the ongoing investment in its employees that Serafino views as one of the company’s biggest accomplishments. The pandemic has been stressful for everyone, but The Exp Group has remained dedicated to ensuring that not only do its workers keep their jobs, but that they feel safe and secure in continuing to work in an essential industry.

“It’s not a nine to five business; it’s not set hours. We’re done when we’re done. When we fulfill today’s duties and orders, we’re done for the day. Holidays and weekends are important: the Fourth of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving. In hospitality, they work holidays, and the produce industry is the same.”

Serafino explains that hiring at The Exp Group means selecting employees who are a fit for the position and a fit for the culture, not simply hiring someone to fill a position for six or seven months. He also stresses that same culture means Exp Group’s produce isn’t necessarily for everyone.

“If you’re looking for price we’re not for you. If you’re looking for quality of a product that your customers and your consumers are going to enjoy, then we’re for you. I’m not the cheapest person on the produce market; I’m a quality person first.”

The company also prides itself on giving back to the community whenever possible, including contributions this past year to City Harvest and other food banks.

“Being kind is free,” says Serafino. “Doing the right thing is free. Unfortunately, we’re in a world where people don’t always share those values. You can’t control other people, you can only control what you can control and that’s yourselves and the workplace you work in. We’re running our own race. We create our own path. It’s the path that my father created when he founded this company, and we have a lot of good people here that work with him. I’m definitely privileged to work my father each and every day,” he shares.

Indeed, the future looks bright for The Exp Group, with expected, continued growth while diversifying and maintaining its exceptional relationships with both employees and clients.

“I’ve always said my plan for this company is to be a multinational produce distribution conglomerate, to have many people work for our company that believe in the same brand and the same values that we do,” says Serafino. “When you can bring more people that work for you along for the ride to share in the growth and the journey together, that is so important.”

Despite the numerous challenges of the past year, Serafino remains proud of the company and its ongoing dedication to providing excellent, healthy produce while maintaining its outstanding culture.

“This past year was about realizing that you do or you don’t know if you have a great culture,” he says. “It was really rewarding when we kept building and branding our messages. We found customers that aligned with us. We found employees that aligned with us. When you see how far this business has come, it’s very rewarding to see.”

The post Fruits of Their Labor: Fresh Fare from Exp Group<p class="company">Exp Group</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

First founded in May of 1990, the company was established in the small community of Ayr in the municipality of Waterloo, Ontario. Starting small, as a three-truck transportation service, by 1993 the team had begun to see success. That year, the company moved its headquarters to Woodstock, New Brunswick, close to the hometown where Joe Keenan, Founder and President, was born.

Today, the company has dedicated terminals in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Brampton, Ontario, and at its headquarters location in Woodstock, New Brunswick. Across these locations they employ long-haul truck drivers, city, and day-cab drivers, operations and administrative staff, finance and sales teams. Ayr employs just over 500 people in total and is the parent company to Keenan Truck Repair in Woodstock – the maintenance facility for all company equipment.

Ayr Motor has had a presence in western Canada for 28 years. As the company has grown, so have the needs of both its clients and employees. Having reached the limits of what can be done with leased property, Ayr has decided to build its own facility with a full warehouse, cross docking capabilities, and a wide range of employee amenities. It will be larger, modernized, and much more efficient in its operations.

The location of the new facility was strategically chosen, positioned right in the center of the trucking hub of western Canada. A key focus of the building’s design is to accommodate the needs of the company’s workers. It will include lounge areas, a lunchroom, locker rooms, and showers. Designing the new facility with these conveniences is Ayr’s way of giving back to the drivers and staff.

With the understanding that its employees are the backbone of the company, Ayr Motor has many other initiatives to show its appreciation, recognizing drivers with safety and performance bonuses quarterly and million-mile awards that include a bonus, leather jacket, watch and certificate. Office and terminal staff are recognized based on years of service milestones with person gift selections and certificates and celebrations on Employee Appreciation Day. To encourage drivers and staff to be not just great employees, but also great citizens, Ayr also recognizes them through its On the Spot Recognition Program.

One aspect that makes Ayr’s team unique is the dedication they have toward supporting the work-life balance of drivers and ensuring they have the opportunity to schedule their own work hours. “Our driver planners are dedicated to giving our drivers the opportunity to schedule when they’re out and when they’re home,” says Melinda Thornton, Director of Human Resources at Ayr Motor. “We have a whole department based specifically on that for our drivers. That way people have more flexibility; they are at home when they need to be home and out when they need to be working.”

As a family-oriented business, the owners of Ayr Motor are sure to be present and make themselves available to the team every day. Highly community-minded, the company supports local families and businesses through various programs, as well as charities and the local civic center. To express gratitude for the sponsorship, the civic center was renamed to the Ayr Motor Center in 2015. The company is also involved in a number of school programs locally including breakfast programs, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada.

In order to remain successful in the trucking industry, companies must be flexible to the concerns of its drivers – as Ayr Motor has been. “I think as the future goes on, the industry needs to adapt to the driver’s needs,” says Seth Keenan, Director of Operations at Ayr Motor. “What I have seen over the last five years is that drivers want to be home more regularly. We have younger drivers that are coming into the industry and they have families themselves, so we need to be a bit more adaptive to that.”

Exemplifying this employee-first approach, Ayr Motor is proud to have been named “Employer of Choice” by THRSC Atlantic, particularly because it is a designation based directly on the employees’ experience. The Trucking Human Resources Sector Council (THRSC) Atlantic offers employers the opportunity to receive anonymous insight and useful feedback from employees in order to improve the overall workplace environment. Based on completed surveys, the program recognizes companies that score well with their employees and rewards them with the title Employer of Choice. Ayr Motor has now received this recognition in 2019 and 2020.

In a video posted to its website, Ayr Motor drivers praise the company for its commitment to work-life balance. Ayr Motor has built its entire transportation system around maximizing the miles and minimizing turnaround times at customer sites to ensure that drivers can spend as much of their downtime at home with their families as possible. “I can honestly say, in twenty years, that I’ve only slept overnight seven times,” says a driver from the video.

Transporting Purolator freight since 2006, Ayr Motor was named Long-Haul Carrier of the Year by Purolator in 2012, 2014, and 2015. In 2019, the company was named a top carrier with the Purolator Eastern Service Award, and it was also awarded the Purolator Western Safety Award. That same year, Ayr Motor was awarded with Large Asset Carrier of the Year from Crown Metal Packaging Canada, one of the largest manufacturers of beverage packaging in the world. Recently, Ayr Motor was granted a five-year contract with Purolator, one of Canada’s leading package and logistics solutions providers, and for 2020 has been recognized as Purolator’s Eastern Carrier of the Year.

Indeed, the main focus for Ayr Motor is providing efficient and cost-effective solutions to its customers. “We strive to give the best service possible, and many of our customers always tell us that we pay very close attention to detail. [The competition] may do some of the same things, but by us paying attention to detail and ensuring the best service possible, that’s what helps make us successful,” says Keenan.

Another adjustment as trucking advances forward is that the carrier’s performance can be measured by customers much more easily. Customers are able to track and follow a shipment’s progress, and technology in this area will only continue to improve. “I think the industry is held to a higher standard in general now,” explains Joe Keenan, President of the company. “With safety and regulations, we’re held to a higher standard by our customers because there are more tools available to customers to measure your service, so you have to be constantly improving.”

Since Ayr Motor opened its doors in 1990, it has seen consistent success. The company has continued to grow steadily year over year, sometimes in the face of substantial economic challenges. In 2020, as the pandemic caused significant downturns in every industry, Ayr Motor was able to maintain its upward trajectory. In many sectors, as the supply chain broke down, transportation companies faltered as well. With the right business plan and dedicated drivers and staff, as many industries struggled, Ayr Motor continued to grow the size of its fleet. “In my career I have never met such hard-working dedicated employees; they amaze me every day and they are key to our success,” says Thornton.

Last year, as the company celebrated 30 years in business, the team had the opportunity to reflect on how much had changed over three decades and also on how much had stayed the same. Operating in such a competitive industry demands that a company be nimble enough to shift with the changing tides and embrace new tools and technologies. Throughout its tenure, Ayr Motor has always kept pace with industry advancements, but maybe even more important is its commitment to the things that it knows will never change: the virtues of hard work and taking care of the people who do it for you.

Now, as Ayr Motor looks ahead, the company is excited about the opening of its new terminal in Winnipeg and the anticipated overall growth that it hopes will turn into further expansion. After a long year of slow progress, the world is beginning to return to normal. Ayr Motor is ready to continue its climb toward even greater success.

The post A Growing Freight Company Giving Priority to Driver Needs<p class="company">Ayr Motor Express</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

A veteran of a demanding and crucial industry, Dubey, the charismatic chief executive officer and president of Specialty Technology and Research, Inc. (familiar to its many customers as STAR Inc.), never ceases to be amazed and gratified by the creativity, integrity, and vision of his staff and licensees worldwide.

“We are always looking for new ideas, and seeing what we can do that is new and exciting for the industry with our products and our technologies,” says Dubey. “I love working with all the members of the STAR family. “It’s a very cohesive group of people who have impeccable integrity in the way they run their businesses, and the services they provide to their customers,” he says. “People in the STAR family are professionals through and through. They run their businesses meticulously, and they look out for each other. And,” he reflects, “that’s the core of me showing up in the office every day after running this company for so long.”

Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio’s state capital, STAR in North America has grown significantly over the years in both domestic and international markets. Founded in 1986 and built upon Dubey’s many years of pavement industry knowledge and technical experience, the company today has 15 licensee plants in the contiguous U.S. and boasts its three international plants – in Australia, China and India – and full-line distributors in Mexico and Chile.

Friendly to users – and the environment
Over the decades, STAR Inc. has emerged as a pre-eminent manufacturer of sealcoating products for the pavement maintenance industry. Since inception in America in the fifties, sealcoatings have become a popular and highly effective way to protect and preserve asphalt surfaces in areas ranging from residential driveways, airports, and low to medium traffic roads to large commercial parking lots.

Over the decades, the sealcoating industry has steadily advanced, taking advantage of the evolving technologies and materials. STAR has been a forerunner in the industry in its efforts to stay on the cutting edge of the sealcoating technology, while propagating the knowledge about their value and relevance. Although the inception was based on sealers made with refined tar, newer generations of sealcoatings have been developed over the decades, which are safer to use and boast minimal or no impact on the environment.

As a safer, cleaner alternative, Dubey and his team formulated STAR-TRITON®, a bold new line of products which are better, safer for sealcoating professionals, but also exceptionally durable and able to boost the life of pavement by 300 percent or more. Resistant to harsh weather, rain, snow, salt and gasoline, the product is not only long-lasting and attractive but also economical, costing about one-third the price of a new installation.

Released about five years ago, STAR-TRITON is one of two-dozen quality products made by the company. On par with refined coal-tar sealers (RTS), it has proven itself to be even better than asphalt emulsion-based sealcoatings (AE) at resisting petrochemicals and other potentially damaging substances.

“It’s more user-friendly and environmentally friendly,” says Dubey of STAR-TRITON, which is water-based, non-burning, and has minimal odor compared to older RTS products on the market. In fact, most STAR customers switched from RTS to STAR-TRITON overnight. “It’s an outstanding alternative for refined coal-tar products.”

As well as producing STAR-TRITON, the company is behind other unique and long-lasting sealcoatings, crack fillers, traffic paints, specialty products, additives, primers, and concrete products.

Another starring role
Introduced to the market around 2015 – at the same time as STAR-TRITON – is STAR SPECTRUM®. A revolutionary new type of color coating for pavements, STAR SPECTRUM is heralded as belonging to “a new generation of pavement maintenance products,” according to the people at STAR, and for good reason.

Made from quality materials including colorfast pigments, performance boosters, minerals, and specialty additives, STAR SPECTRUM is a 100 percent acrylic latex polymer-based coating that protects paved surfaces from inclement weather, chemicals, and much more. Available in a rainbow of vibrant standard and custom colors, STAR SPECTRUM is ideal for safety, traffic delineation, corporate identity, and other applications. Providing supreme durability, the line is also non-hazardous, making it well-suited to playgrounds and other public areas.

Best known for its many sealcoating product lines, STAR also manufactures products specifically for concrete, including MACRO-DECK®, which effectively protects concrete against damage from the elements and chemicals. Formulated with acrylic polymers and specialty chemicals, MACRO-DECK is well-suited to resist salt, and ideal for everything from concrete bridges to support structures, highway dividers and other concrete surfaces. The MACRO-DECK product line is complemented with other quality concrete products such as STAR® ARMOUR-GUARD™, STAR-CRETE ACID-ETCH, STAR-CRETE ACRYLIC LATEX CONCRETE STAIN and STAR-CRETE STAR PRISM – a clear concrete-penetrating sealer,

Superior quality
Categorized as an essential industry because of the need for ongoing infrastructure maintenance, STAR Inc. hasn’t slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic. And while some segments in the industry may have slowed down due to supply issues, STAR hasn’t had any such problems. “The main reason is that the raw materials we’re using are all indigenous,” says Girish. “Nothing is imported, and that could affect the supply chain.”

The hallmark of STAR’s prominence is its commitment to Research and Development, taking advantage of emerging technologies, quality control and assurance for consistency in performance. All R & D and quality assurance functions are carried out at STAR’s headquarters in Columbus, OH.

STAR Technology Licensing Program – the key to growth
Uniquely, STAR is the sole American company offering independent business people the technology-licensing opportunities to manufacture sealcoatings.

“Our technology-licensing program is quite unique and highly cost-effective when compared to a typical run-of-the-mill franchise program,” say the people at STAR. “We allow our licensees to grow in their business environments with the least amount of restriction on their business activities, as long as they conform to the quality standards of our sealcoatings.” STAR works exclusively through its licensee plants who manufacture sealcoatings and supply other STAR plants in their respective regions.

STAR’s Technology Licensing Program has been the main avenue for growth since its inception in 1986. STAR has a very conservative approach in selecting the licensees. In addition to their experience and background, STAR licensees must have impeccable integrity and a commitment for serving the pavement maintenance industry. In 2017 and again in 2018, the company welcomed new licensees to the STAR family. At present, STAR is working on several manufacturing opportunities in both domestic and international locations, and exploring other growth avenues.

More than products
A great believer in the quality of his company’s products, President and CEO Dubey also strongly believes in educating customers about the science behind sealcoatings and other products for the sole purpose of empowering them to select the right products. Dubey believes that an educated customer is a dedicated customer, and has published numerous articles in trade magazines over the past decades.

Through its YouTube channel, the company promotes Triton, Macro-Fast, Macro-Flex, and other items. Along with a growing presence on social media sites, the company’s well-established website – containing a wealth of information including downloadable product descriptions, technical data sheets, source books and more – is undergoing a redesign.

“We are going through a complete makeover of the website,” Dubey says, “and we’ll be including more videos to make it helpful for contractors as well as property owners with regard to product application, selection of the materials, and so on.” Additional informative videos are still being worked on, but the new site will be up by this spring.

For Dubey, who was inducted into the Pavement Hall of Fame in 2019, the sealcoating industry is both a profession and a passion.

Holding Master’s Degrees in Inorganic Chemistry, a degree in Polymer Chemistry, and years of hands-on experience, Dubey has been an integral part of the sealcoatings industry since the early Seventies. After all these years, he still welcomes each new morning, eagerly anticipating the day’s work with his clients and other members of the STAR family.

The post Founded on Knowledge and Integrity<p class="company">STAR Inc.</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

This company offers cross-border refrigerated truckload transport, intermodal/container, and brokerage duties services. While focused on keeping its employees COVID-19-free, Seafood Express Transport is eager to expand its capabilities and geographic reach. The company has also become an industry leader in promoting wellness and diversity.

Despite the firm’s name, “Seafood is only a small percentage of what we haul these days. We haul mostly fresh and frozen food products now… A lot of potatoes and some fish during certain seasons, then everything from produce to fruit and vegetables,” explains Andy Keith, who recently took over from his father as company president.

About ninety-five percent of the company’s loads are transported in refrigerated trailers with a “very small portion of dry freight,” he continues. Seafood Express Transport works with “the big grocers within Canada, the big box stores within Canada… we also do a lot of work with potato brokers on the island.” In addition to food, the company hauls beverages, medicine, tissue paper, and pharmaceutical supplies such as vials and test tubes.

Its container operations involve roughly ten to fifteen trucks and cover both imports and exports. Seafood Express Transport will deliver loaded containers to piers to be loaded on ships or transport containers from ships to inland customers.

In addition to its headquarters, the company operates a maintenance facility with three drive-through bays and a drive-through wash station. Trucks are kept in optimal running condition, with new vehicles constantly added to the fleet.

“Our trucks and trailers have a certain lifespan, and it’s kind of a continual investment every so often in replacing trucks and trailers. We like to keep our trucks pretty new, so we replace them every four to five years. Over the past three or four years, our fleet size has grown from about fifty trucks to now seventy-five, and our trailer bank has increased from about eighty-five to now 135,” says Keith. The company owns about ninety percent of its trucks, with the remainder being leased vehicles.

Seafood’s trucks are fitted with advanced two-way dash-cams, GPS systems, and sensors. Trailer monitoring software allows staff to keep a close watch on trailer fuel and temperature levels, mileage, idle time, and location. Maintenance staff “usually know there’s a problem with a reefer unit before the driver does,” and can alert the trucker to mechanical issues, he says.

The company’s head office has also become a technological hub. In recent years, it has “invested a lot into new operating software that does everything from daily operations, dispatching, our accounting. It keeps our customer lists up to date, tracks staff profiles. There are different modules assigned to it. There’s a safety compliance module, there’s a repair module and a maintenance module. We schedule all our trucks and keep track of all our inventory through it,” says Keith.

The company has come a long way, given its humble roots. Seafood Express Transport was founded in the late 1970s, and Keith’s father Bill then acquired it in 1986.

“When my father bought it, the company only had six or seven trucks and was almost exclusively hauling fish. He ran it until January 1, 2021, when I took complete ownership of the company,” says Keith, who worked at Seafood during summers and on a part-time basis when he was younger. His father remains active in a consultative role, even in retirement, he says.

He wants to keep the company within the family. At the moment, a brother-in-law and a sister-in-law also work with him.

Before COVID-19, Seafood Express Transport was looking into potentially hauling more dry freight. Dry vans were secured, and business was lined up, but COVID-19 restrictions put this venture temporarily on hold. It was also thinking about expanding its brokerage operations.

Although expansion efforts have been halted, the company was well-prepared when the pandemic hit last March, says Keith. Thanks to its investment in technology, office staff who wanted to stay at home could work remotely with minimal difficulty.

Maintenance staff and drivers cannot work from home, however. Drivers were issued with hand sanitizer, face-masks, rubber gloves, and other PPE safety equipment to keep them infection-free on the road. Maintenance crews were given personal protective equipment to wear when cleaning and working on vehicles. The company also redesigned its office, moving desks to maintain a safe distance apart and putting Plexiglas barriers in place.

COVID-19 spurred further technological change. Paperwork was switched to digital formats, which ended up streamlining administration.

As it delivers food, Seafood Express Transport was deemed an essential service and did not have to shut down during the pandemic. Still, COVID-19 caused a spike in expenses. A few of the company’s customers ran into cash flow problems, equipment parts became difficult to acquire due to long delays, and drivers faced long delays while waiting for paperwork to clear, etc.

Traditionally, Seafood Express Transport staff made a point of visiting customers in person to touch base and discuss business. Such meetings are now done over the phone or online.

Keith says he used to encourage staff to attend conferences and trade shows to “gain more knowledge in a specific niche – whether human resources, maintenance, etc.” Most of these events have been shut down or have gone digital for the time being.

He has big plans once the pandemic lifts. “We want to extend our freight network. We don’t really haul too much of anything west of Ontario in Canada. We don’t do a lot in the western United States.”

He is proud that the firm pulled together during the worst of COVID-19 and that the company did not have to lay off any of its staff. The company’s loyalty to its workforce has been recognized with an Employer of Choice award from the Trucking Human Resource Sector Council Atlantic last year, and it has earned this honour for the past four years, says Keith. In 2018, Seafood Express Transport also took home an Excellence in Business Award from the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce.

Including drivers, Seafood Express Transport has roughly 120 employees. Keith sees the size of his company as an advantage. Being small and flexible, it is easier to pivot in the face of new challenges or opportunities compared to larger carriers, he explains.

And certainly, there is no lack of challenges to overcome, including the continent-wide driver shortage. The industry is in the middle of a demographic crunch, with an ageing workforce and not enough young people replacing retiring drivers and certified technicians.

“We’ve invested a lot of money in recruiting over the last five years. We didn’t have a full-time recruiter before. Now we do,” he states.

As a proud board member of the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association and the PEI Trucking Sector Council, Keith and his colleagues are working hard to ameliorate the driver shortage. Industry associations have teamed with educators and have launched initiatives to raise awareness of trucking sector opportunities. Trucking groups are also trying to entice young people by highlighting how computerized the sector has become.

Another challenge comes in the form of environmental regulations. Seafood Express Transport must constantly update its fleet to ensure that company vehicles meet increasingly strict emission control standards.

Seafood Express Transport has become something of an industry pioneer when it comes to promoting wellness in the trucking sector. The company recently launched a podcast, available for anyone to view, featuring interviews with truckers, driving tips, and discussions about mental and physical health. Called The Express Lane Podcast, this new media venture has been well-received, says Keith.

“We interview a driver and ask how they get along with challenges they face on the road. We’ll interview registered dieticians for tips to drivers to stay healthy on the road.”

The podcast is a natural outgrowth of the company’s efforts at maintaining a healthy workforce. It also provides free fruit for employees, has a fitness center at its terminal that staff can access at any time, and holds after-hours seminars by qualified speakers about health topics. Seafood Express Transport has a multicultural workforce and hosts regular diversity training events too.

“A lot of people think trucking is this rough and tough macho kind of environment. That’s not the culture we’re breeding here internally. It’s something that carriers and vendors need to pay closer attention to – the well-being of their staff – if they want their staff to be productive and efficient,” states Keith.

The post Family Firm Sets New Standards in the Trucking Sector<p class="company">Seafood Express Transport</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Is PECO Pallet America’s brightest pallet pooler today? With its lively red pallets to be seen here, there, and everywhere throughout North America’s warehouses, clients are left with no second-guessing about who their supplier is, whether in Mexico, Canada or the U.S.A.

Red has always stood for passion, speed, and dominance – three perfect descriptors for this dynamic company. With its American base in Irvington, New York, and the Canadian outfit headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, the company’s closed-loop pallet operation comprises well over 2000 recovery points, more than 40 depots, and a similar number of sorting zones across North America.

And its quality is as easily recognizable as its signature color. Every pallet is made according to the strictest specifications with 26 slats and just short of 140 fasteners guaranteed per full-sized unit.

To date, PECO Pallet has been lauded for affordable prices, sterling service, and as a forward thinker given to setting trends. This translates to a reputation for coming to market with novel value propositions. Like being the driving force behind the rising popularity of box pallets that is slowly causing a drop in the use of stringer pallets throughout Canada – making it a pioneer of using block pallets exclusively in closed-loop pallet pooling.

The popularity of block pallets seems easily justifiable when moving them around as they are built to be more easily movable by forklifts or when transported on trailers. Furthermore, PECO’s superior quality is achieved by using only responsibly harvested wood dried in kilns, which mitigates issues like fungus, insect infestations, etc. Treating the wood in this manner enhances its durability.

Before the block pallets are dispatched back into the rental circuit, every unit passes through a rigorous 15-point inspection executed by specialized technology that includes the lasers, cameras, and 3D scanners that make up the company’s Vision-X system.

This happens on every single return trip through the depot. It may sound like a very intense process to the uninitiated, but those in the industry fully understand the time and wastage that occurs when poolers deliver substandard pallets.

PECO Pallet has literally millions of its instantly recognizable block pallets in circulation throughout North America, but it nevertheless handles all movement of its own pallets, including those returning from their final destination to its depot where they submit to the rigorous testing and cleaning process.

Considering the scale on which the company operates, this is a gargantuan task, even for as highly tuned and efficient a company as PECO.

For the sake of precision, it is therefore imperative that clients’ needs are thoroughly ascertained and followed up with relevant feedback and problem-solving discussions. With logistics running hot through this company’s veins, it is a field that the PECO Pallet team excels at. Flexibility and responsive customer care form a fundamental part of its ethos.

Rigging its entire operation for optimum accuracy at all times is one of the company’s mainstays to ensure that no time at all is wasted in getting pallets organized and on the road for clients in high-pressure industries. To ease the process, PECO side-stepped the common call-center business model in favor of assigning each client their own specific consultants responsible for dealing with all their orders and shipments.

The company first started doing business in 1997 as the Pallet Exchange Company, which name soon yielded to the acronym of PECO that’s in use today. The company was the brainchild and combining of forces of nearly 20 pallet recyclers, fabricators, and brokers, each, at that time, running their own operation.

They were all seasoned in the trade and had a common vision – that they could make a genuine, competitive impact by synchronizing and improving the control and distribution of pallets. PECO Pallet developed and introduced its pooling model in Canada in 2013.

With supply chain management being under severe pressure during 2020’s lockdown measures, the superior service and technology that the company offers has brought tremendous returns in terms of client satisfaction. Not surprising, as the benefits of choosing PECO pallets include reduced conveyor and palletizer pile-ups, safer racking zones, less packaging, improved product safety, cheaper storage, and less time spent in circulation by the pallets.

In terms of the significant savings reported in an independent study led by Canada’s Poirier Group (TPG), distributors can avoid wasting nearly US$500,000 annually by opting for block pallets over stringer pallets. As PECO Pallet notes in a press release, this impressive amount comprises over US$440,000 in transport charges, as well as nearly US$57,000 in improved operational effort.

Also, based on a report by Freedonia (the expectation of a nearly two percent increase in pallet distribution by the end of 2019), the numbers were projected to show over 2.5 million new pallets entering the market in Canada alone.

The logistics news provider, inboundlogistics.com, in 2017 identified two reasons for the sharp increase projected by analyst Kyle Peters of Freedonia. An increase in consumer goods shipped from manufacturers, plus the upgrade of old pallets that had not been phased out due to the recession of 2017/2018, were given as the main contributors to the projection.

While a marked move toward using restored over brand-new pallets is also noted, business projections are looking particularly favorable for PECO Pallet with its sterling offering.

In December 2020, DC Velocity reported a tremendous rise in the demand for better quality rental block-pallets. PECO Pallet was ready to answer the call and it filled the gap in the market with its great quality, easy-stack pallets.

With such superb timing, we will no doubt soon see good news about its successful handling of the COVID-19 crisis.

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