Vanstone Logistics is a family owned and operated business based in Queensland. Its original identity, Vanstone Produce, was established in Rochedale in 1912 and later relocated to Lockyer Valley in 2008.
In 2021 the family saw the need for further growth and so Managing Director, Justin Vanstone, brought the transport version of the company to life for a better service level and flexibility in freighting. This is when Justin approached Brown & Hurley to build his fleet. Here he met Trevor Cox, who sourced his first trailer in the form of a Schmitz Cargobull B-double set.
“We were looking around and we were impressed by the insulation of panels with Schmitz Cargobull,” Justin says. “They seemed far superior to a lot of other makes on the temperature side, and that was very important for us.”
Since then, Vanstone Logistics hasn’t looked anywhere else when the time came for a new trailer. And while the fleet only has 18 months of experience with the Schmitz Cargobull product, it’s 18 months of an entire fleet worth.
“We’re solely Schmitz Cargobull,” Justin says. “We use different configurations and chassis, but our whole fleet is built by them. There are two main reasons for this. Availability was definitely one and then the second was the way that their trailers are constructed, specifically the refrigerated box. We also quite like the design of the flat floor inside and it gives us a lot of flexibility with their load bar system.”
All of Vanstone Logistics’ trailers are fitted with Schmitz Cargobull’s double loading systems, which are well-known for their loading bars capable of sliding to the roof. This, Justin says, is very unique in the marketplace.
“They’re very quick to load and unload, which is critical,” he says. “It reduces driver time while doing loading activities. That system is definitely what stands Schmitz Cargobull out from the rest for us.”
The Vanstone Logistics fleet is based on four Schmitz Cargobull trailer configurations – rollback A trailers, road train-capable 22-pallet trailers, a couple of B-double specific trailers to help with weight distribution and a 24-pallet European unit thanks to its latest order.
“We only just recently took delivery of the first of three European-built, 48-foot trailers,” Justin says. “We’re pretty impressed with them. They’re a bit of a different design, they’re very dock-friendly on the rear end and there’s improvements on the dimensions inside.”
There are also more units in the delivery process onsite at Brown & Hurley Yatala, which Justin is eager to get his hands on.
“That’s an additional A trailer just to balance us out,” he says. “Every 22-pallet of ours will have a 12-pallet to go in front of it with the delivery of the last A trailer. Our second 48-foot trailer is also being prepared and signed up, which is another European-built trailer.”
These units, among the others, will run between Brisbane and Sydney carting produce primarily as well as anything refrigerated. With the Schmitz Cargobull trailers being matched up with Thermo King fridges, Justin has found the product to be very efficient in their operations.
“They’ve been pretty good,” he says. “Fuel economy on the fridge side of things has been great. There are no temperature issues or anything, which is very important. Also, the way that they actually tow and sit on the highway has been very good too. They are a little bit lighter as well, which improves the payload just a bit.”
Choosing to rely on Schmitz Cargobull solely, Justin says, seems to have been the right choice.
“It’s the reliability of the temperature control, honestly, which is the biggest tick of the box,” he says. “I’ve got a lot of faith in them – their ability to have good temperature control is definitely the biggest benefit for sure.”
According to Justin, Schmitz Cargobull meets all of Vanstone Logistics’ demands.
“Overall we’re pretty happy with the product,” he says. “They’ve stuck to their delivery schedule, and that’s why we’ve continued to take new deliveries from them.
“We’ve got to the point where there’s actually a third trailer that Brown & Hurley will deliver in the coming months, so that pretty much forms up our initial two-year plan. I haven’t sat down with Trevor to organise it yet, but Schmitz Cargobull will be a part of that growth moving forward if that continues, for sure.”
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