Aug 293 min read

How To Secure Onion Loads

Instruction for driver, onion loads:

General Tips

Best is to have at least half tank or full tank of fuel before getting to onion pick up, if you have half tank calculate for the remaining half by formula 7 lbs. per each gallon of fuel you have to add in your tanks.
Onion loads are paid per bag, so more bags you take, more you will get paid, that's why is important to take as many bags as possible (of course to stay in the legal weight, under 80kp).
Knowing your empty weight (with full tanks) you can calculate approximately how many bags of onion you will be able to take. We recommend dividing it by 53-54 lbs. We should take at least 870-900 bags of onions.

Loading and checking

To make the skids of onions lean inside the trailer you have to use one 2x4 or 4x4 under the front of first skid and under the back of the last skid.

2. You will ask the loader before loading, and if you will get any boxed onions (in cardboard boxes), ask them to place them in the middle of the load because they are less stable so other skids will keep them together, and stabilize them. Also use V-boards to secure them in order not to crash the cardboard boxes as they will claim them as damaged when we arrive.

3. Make sure none of the bags of onions are leaning to the sides, they would do that if they are poorly palletized, ask the loader to either restack them or turn them so they lean inside the load. If you will not do that then most likely they will lean even more while driving and you will have to restack them manually somewhere in the middle of the road (that is not fun, I restacked 100 bags of 50 lbs. each on an interstate from the ground back to the trailer and back on the skids...)

4. If you notice any wet, or just freshly harvested onions that did not dry up a little bit yet, or rotten or fungus onions report to dispatch immediately as the issue will progress and you may get a damage reject load at delivery.

Prepairing for the road

Once you got loaded with desired amount of onions please scale and see if you could take any more, it should be at least 870-900 bags, and take as many as you can. If you can't take a full skid and you need just 20 bags or half skid then ask the loader for how many more you need. If they refuse to give you that, tell your dispatcher so we can contact the broker and they will load as many as we can take.

Note: if the bags are 25 lbs. you have to divide by 2 to get the amount of 50# bags, so if you have 600 of 50# bags and 400 of 25# bags, you really have just 800 of 50# bag equivalent, so you need 100 of 50# bags more. If you are not sure how to calculate, check with you dispatcher.

2. Do not leave the shipper unless you got consent by your dispatcher on the amount of bags you took, and you can take no more bags.

3. When will be done as usually take the pictures of the load without tarp.

4. Tarp the load as per shipper instructions, or see ours if he has nothing specific.

5. Take a picture of the load with tarps.

6. When driving onion loads they are more fluid and less stable than other loads so please drive slower at curves, change lanes and turn smoother, don't accelerate or brake hard. Recheck your load after first 150 miles and then each time you stop for fuel, food or rest stops...

Driving onions through rain:

1. When its raining drop the sides

2. Once the rain stopped lift the sides and front and back so it has ventilation

Driving onions through cold weather:

Plan your route in the coldest regions (go south if you have a choice on the roads)
The minimum safe temperature is 20° – 25° F
You have to keep driving in cold temperatures (WY,NE, UT mountains), so you spend less time in cold temperature.
Sleep in cities, where is no wind (between 2 dry vans or reefers), and not in valleys, but also not high in mountains, so where the temperature is highest in the region and no winds.
If temperature is < 45° F you have to tarp all sides (sides, front & back of the trailer.