The refrigerated freight industry operates on a seasonal rhythm that smart carriers are learning to leverage. While produce season demands all hands on deck from May through August, the winter months offer a strategic window for operational improvements that can define success in the year ahead.
In a recent episode of Running On Ice, host Mary O’Connell sat down with Travis Ross, Senior Sales Engineer, and Megan Bafford, Market Development Lead at EROAD, to discuss why the slower winter months represent the ideal time for fleets to optimize their cold chain operations through telematics adoption and refinement.
For many temperature-controlled carriers, summer is survival mode. Ross painted a vivid picture of the seasonal intensity that defines produce season.
“Summer is like holding on to the reins, like the never ending rhythm of data that you just can’t consume,” Ross said. “You can’t do anything about it. Winter is the closest thing to a breather that one of these operations is ever going to get.”
Ross compared the situation to a professional kitchen between meals. “During the dinner rush, the tickets are flying in and you’re just holding on,” he said. “When that’s over, do you really take a breather and do nothing, or do you analyze what happened during that time? The time to reflect is when the data is flowing in nice and easy and you can take action to get ahead.”
Attempting to implement new systems or refine existing processes during peak season is a recipe for disaster. When carriers are responding to last-minute harvest calls and racing against the clock to deliver perishable goods, there’s simply no bandwidth for change management or system optimization.
“Cold chain distribution is a marathon, really,” Ross said. “The actual race takes place in spring and at the start of summer, and the race is a scorecard for who actually planned, who looked at their game film over the winter months, who consumed the data, and who made the necessary changes,” he said.
The consequences of skipping this preparation are predictable and predictably painful.
“It’s very revealing when carriers large and small finish out the summer and just kinda relax,” Ross said. “And then the next summer comes, and it’s the same repeat of fighting off recalls, of having excessive shrink, product loss and damage, all those things. I’m not sure why you would want to live that Groundhog Day every year.”
Granular analysis, Ross says, such as examining pre-cool procedures, delivery protocols, and fuel consumption patterns, transforms raw data into actionable intelligence that can reshape standard operating procedures before the next peak season arrives.
One often-overlooked aspect of telematics adoption, Ross says, is its value in shipper-carrier relationships, particularly in arrangements where shippers bear the operational costs.
In broadline distribution, the shipper (or distributor acting as a shipper to the carrier) often absorbs significant summer costs, such as fuel, maintenance, and labor, essentially paying a premium for challenging conditions.
For carriers in these arrangements, demonstrating operational excellence through data can be a major competitive advantage.
“The best of the best carriers are partnering with us and taking this time to analyze the data so they can show their shippers how they are best in class,” Ross said.
When shippers express skepticism about the need for additional visibility, EROAD can help illuminate where their money is actually going.
“We come across a lot of shippers who say that they have carriers who handle everything, so they don’t need to have a chat,” Ross said. “The problem is, you’re paying for it all. So if you really want to understand what’s happening with your dollars, we can show you and we can help your carriers.”
Bafford says that EROAD’s philosophy centers around serving as a true partner for logistics companies rather than simply a technology vendor. Bafford outlined the company’s holistic approach to helping fleets navigate the adoption process.
“One of the biggest challenges with change management is that it’s not about technology,” Bafford said. “We all know it’s about data overload. Operation teams often lack the time or resources when they have all these massive amounts of telematics data to process.”
That’s where EROAD steps in as a partner, not just a vendor. “We help filter and transform all of that data into actual insights that matter most to you,” Bafford said.
The company takes a structured approach to onboarding and implementation. “We have a collaborative training and planning session to make sure we’re aligned with our goals,” Bafford said. “From there, we develop simplified dashboards tailored to all of your operational priorities, and then the next step is the integration.”
This process continues with targeted training sessions and ongoing support for marketing, customer success, and educational resources, says Bafford.
“All of these things are wrapped up together, reducing that complexity, which we all know is a major hassle,” Bafford said. “With clarity and confidence, you can ensure your procedural updates are practical, measurable, and that you’re ready for compliance before the peak season.”
A key differentiator in EROAD’s approach is recognizing that different roles within an organization have different data needs.
Ross, who came to EROAD from a transportation management role at Golden State Foods, spoke from personal experience about the challenges of data overload.
“I didn’t want the data,” Ross said. “It irritated me all the time. All I wanted to do was hire drivers and deliver groceries, until someone showed me how easy it was to consume this data.”
That experience shaped his approach to helping EROAD’s customers.
“The amount of things you can do with the telematics is incredible, but not every role needs to be bothered with that,” Ross said. “We’ve developed our approach over the years. By isolating what each role in the organization needs to know, we’re just talking minutes per day for massive gains.”
EROAD provides a variety of resources to support customers through the optimization process, including easy-to-follow playbooks with step by step guidance, cheat sheets and visuals for quick reference, and landing pages and training websites for centralized learning.
Bafford says that her team can create custom landing pages for stakeholders. “We’ve even created landing pages for influencers,” she said. “We work with you hand in hand in a holistic approach.”
The goal, she says, is transforming complexity into clarity. “These tools reduce the complexity and empower your team to act quickly with actionable data,” Bafford said. “The customers get the clarity, the confidence, and the measurable results so they’re not overwhelmed by the data.”
The data generated during peak season contains valuable insights, but only if fleets take the time to analyze it and translate findings into operational improvements. With regulatory requirements tightening and shipper expectations rising, baseline telematics capabilities have become table stakes.
Winter is not just a respite from the chaos of peak season, but a strategic window to prepare for success in the coming year.
The time to enhance those capabilities is now, say Ross and Bafford, before produce season arrives once again.
