Prime Inc. teases launch of new division

A few years ago maverick started a reefer division...it didn't last long .

 

I knew you going to hang your hat on this point/metaphor. Competition in a free market has no room for emotions, right? Well, you're right, BUT... REO6205 made a post that even a Capitalist like me can appreciate. There are 6+ FAMILY-owned companies in Nor. Cal. (Panella, Antonini, Valley Farm Transport, Mike Lowrie, Roy E. Lay, TVT) that bid (COMPETE) for agriculture loads every year. Tomatoes, Rice, Onions, Grain, Walnuts, Almonds, ETC...I can appreciate this competition in the marketplace, as it is based on generations of KNOWLEDGE of the idiosyncrasies of these niche sectors of trucking. For a MEGA carrier to come into these sectors because they can flippantly go out and buy equipment, and just add this new entity into their system, oh, and if doesn't work out, oh well, we'll just right it off. IMO...There's a difference between that and someone sharpening their pencil EVEY YEAR to get the work.
I know what I have said has emotion involved, so, I guess I just lost this debate.

 

Everyone competes with everyone no matter what. Back in the early 2000’s when I was driving for my old boss we lost some work for about three years when Watkins Sheppard decided they were going to step into the maxi flat game. We lost freight from Plum Creek. We lost loads from Roseburg Forest Products. When their experiment failed everyone got their work back. I suspect the same would happen if they tried to step into your example of seasonal work with specialty equipment that is useless everywhere except CA.

People try dumb stuff sometimes and it burns then. May of 2021 Koch dropped the rates on fertilizer out of the plant in Billings MT. So the local guys didn’t haul it. My friend hauls anhydrous for Koch and they were begging for trucks to haul that dry fertilizer. I went to Billings with a single 42ft trailer and hauled legal 26 ton loads for 5 weeks and was getting paid almost as much as they wanted to pay the 10 axle trains. I’m sure Koch brought their rates back up after that year.

That’s probably what would happen in your scenario anyway. Some bean counter would end up costing the company more when they need to bring in trucks to fix the screw up from trying to save a few bucks.

 

I laughed when I seen a few years ago one of the megas was getting into log hauling. Yeah come try that on the west coast with 63,500 kg super b's coming down the sides of mountains and needing to throw 2 sets of triples on 2 or 3 times a day lol.

 

They’re all getting into everything. JB Hunt and Hogan are hauling pigs. JB Hunt has feed trucks. Covenant bought out Lew Thompson last year and got into hauling chicken feed. Yes they are coming into segments dominated by owner operators, but being dominated by owner operators can also be a negative when people are looking for a lot of capacity right now. There’s hog and chicken barns going up all over Nebraska right now and someone needs to haul the feed and the livestock. Unfortunately a lot of small carriers don’t have the capital or the financing to act when a large opportunity presents itself.

 

Remember several years ago when JB Hunt bought a bunch of flatbeds and tried to corner the market hauling lumber out of NorCal? That didn't last long and it was sure entertaining to watch.
I don't know anything about ag hauling in the mid-west but I know around here the pie is already split up into enough very small pieces.
The only work that isn't locked up tight by the old timers isn't worth doing to begin with.
The companies you listed have been around a long time and they can just take turns under bidding a stranger until the stranger either signs up or gets out. It's happened before.

 

As if hopper rates ain't low enough already.

@Last Call what say you?

 

What I think about it would differently get me locked out of this thread more than likely a lifetime ban here.. I Think @Judge has done a jgood job of voicing my thoughts also I agree 100% with what he has posted.
I also think @REO6205 ’s story also proves tPrime’s true intentions and confirms the idea that Prime has no business engaging in the bulk commodities and just proves that they will damage another area of the trucking industry, and anyone the wish’s to defend Prime for doing this has not pulled a hopper ever or in the last 3 or 4 years .
The only good thing to result from this is it’s going to be the best entertainment when Your bored stiff sitting in line waiting to load or unload. And you get to watch the carnage a prime truck creates, because the non driving, flip flop sweat pants wearing simple minded drivers rate cutting Prime has will tear up more things than imaginable ….
That’s what I think

 

Those famous two words in trucking "UP TO" meaning " not to" believe it