The Right Direction

On a recent flight to Houston, Texas, to visit some customers, I was reading an article that stimulated a long conversation between our CEO and myself. The article was about the effectiveness of taking one hour out of the 24 hours in a day to improve a skill. If you want to be a better golfer, plan to golf at least one hour a day. Need to get in shape? Work out one hour a day. Like to learn a language? Devote one hour a day. As our conversation moved from things we would like to change in ourselves, from tighter abs to joining triathlons, we got back to our favorite subject: How can we improve our team? The 24/7 commitment we have made to our clients has been working very well. How can we take one of those hours to develop our team and make it even better? This leads me to ask our readers, “What aspect of your lives or work can you improve by giving it one hour a day?”

Along with finding solutions for customers, we want to be able to trim the fat from the cost of transportation while making it profitable for all parties involved. Inside this issue you will learn more about one of our food service clients with whom we are working very closely to achieve that goal.

In our last newsletter we announced our commitment to excellence. This journey to distinction is not an easy road to take, and it requires effective strategies along the way. A part of this strategy is to limit our range of services to only one and to focus on what we do best—the transportation of produce. We are good at transporting dry freight and pharmaceutical products, but by limiting our line of service, we can excel. We will do more than transporting your load from here to there; we intend to be your partner in profitability.


Josh Miller
Vice President of Sales/Operations
Email: josh@ horizonproduce.com

Horizon Transportation supports The Salad Bar in Every School campaign which works to increase children's produce consumption through government policy support and funding for fruit and vegetable salad bars in all schools across the country. The campaign, administered by the United Fresh Foundation Center for Health & Nutrition, relies on the personal involvement and charitable commitment of produce growers, distributors and marketers to raise private funds for donation of salad bars to schools in select communities across the country.These salad bars serve as demonstration models for increasing children's fresh fruit and vegetable consumption, and thereby assist school nutrition professionals, principals and teachers, parents groups and community supporters, working with local, state and federal government officials, to bring salad bars to all 100,000 schools across the U.S.


The Salad Bar in Every School campaign is a great fit for First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative to combat childhood obesity; both programs share common objectives and strategies. Mrs. Obama's program advocates increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, along with other dietary behaviors and exercise, to help kids get and stay healthy. United is excited about the opportunity to make significant contributions to Mrs. Obama's initiative, the result of which can be millions of healthier kids.


United Fresh Produce Association is the industry's leading trade association committed to driving the growth and success of produce companies and their partners. United Fresh represents the interests of member companies throughout the global, fresh produce supply chain, including family-owned, private and publicly traded businesses as well as regional, national and international companies.  The association was founded in 1904 to represent the produce industry, and recently took the name United Fresh as a result of the 2006 merger of the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association and the International Fresh-Cut Produce Association. United Fresh will continue the shared mission of IFPA and UFFVA to promote the growth and success of produce companies and their partners. As fresh-cut and other forms of value-added processing continue to fuel industry growth in meeting consumer demand for high quality, convenient produce, the association will continue to provide the highest level of expertise and management support for members in these critical areas.

November is here and the holidays are right around the corner. Let us know your holiday orders early so we can get trucks in place to help with the holiday rush. As usual the day after Thanksgiving, people will start selling Christmas Trees out of Washington and Oregon, if you’re shipping out of this area you may be alarmed with your rates increasing. Here at HTS we want to make sure you and your customers are taken care of. We have negotiated rates with drivers through the holiday this is a perfect opportunity to see just how good our HTS reps really are.

As always keep on truckin’, Happy Shipping!

Onward,
Josh Miller
Vice President of Sales