We continue our occasional series, examining the various industries nationwide that, in our experience, rely heavily on portable loading docks to increase efficiency.
Food for Thought
Quick inventory: a cup of coffee, a bagel, and a plate of strawberries are all on the desk for breakfast, here at work. Farmers cultivated each of those elements—coffee beans, wheat, fruit—and then trucked them off the farm for processing and distribution before they reached the store and, eventually, our desk.
Our ability to take a bite of that bagel is based on farming methods that began 11,500 years ago. We’ve come a long way: U.S. agribusiness alone generates nearly half a trillion dollars in annual revenue each year. The sector is good for the eonomy, good for trade, and—most centrally—good for our health (yes, when we eat smartly).
What we find particularly fascinating is the geographic spread of that production.
California is our largest producer of crops and livestock (11% of the national total), followed by Iowa, Texas, Nebraska, and Minnesota. And we want our Florida orange juice (in Oregon), our Washington apples (in Delaware), our Wisconsin cheese (in New Mexico).
So, distribution is essential. Along with that come critical factors in successful delivery, including: keeping commodities fresh, assuring necessary refrigeration, and matching production supply with consumer demand.
The Yard Ramp Guy is honored to play a critical role in farm-to-table agribusiness. Our portable loading docks ease and streamline the physical movement of foodstuff from farm to processing centers and distribution hubs.
Agribusiness utilizes our loading docks long before those end results. For example, livestock need feed and crops need fertilizer (in fact, most of the world’s grain production is fed to livestock). All of which requires logistics management in the weeks and months prior to cultivation.
Every time we see a loaf of bread on the store shelf, we wonder for just a moment how our ground-to-truck yard ramps might well have helped get it there. We’re very proud to contribute to this essential industry.
