Freight Rules

Please refer to our standard terms and conditions for a more detailed document.  The purpose of this section is to briefly summarise our rules around how freight is advised to us, packaged, labelled, and delivered. 

1. Unless freight is charged by weight or cube, then any carton or tie consignment in excess of 0.1 cubic metres or 20kg will be charged as two cartons or ties.
2. The H&S guidelines are that no package should exceed 18kg if it is to be manually handled. Ideally cartons or ties will not exceed 12kg.
3. We welcome customers advising us of their requested delivery date.  We will do our best to achieve this.  However any delivery date requested is not contractually agreed to by Us, unless we do so separately in writing.  This is especially relevant for chilled short dated product.  “Next day” delivery is usually achievable, but sometimes it isn’t, and no liability can be accepted for delivery delays, unless we have specifically and explicitly accepted your requested delivery date in writing.
4. All consignments must be well packaged. Using recycled cartons with brands unrelated to your business or products will often lead to problems, either due to confusion with other similar cartons in freight depots, or due to cartons not being strong enough to serve their purpose.  We encourage you to use new clean cartons and packaging that is suitable for the weight and nature of your product.  It must be stacked or able to be stacked on a standard chep pallet that measures 1.2m x 1m, without overhang.
5. Labelling should clearly state the origin, the destination name and address, and the temperature requirements of the product. For example “Chilled – store at between 0°C and 7°C.”  It should also have separate “fragile” and “keep frozen” stickers if applicable.  Handwritten labels are over-represented in errors, but if you must use them, please ensure the writing is in block letters, using a permanent marker.  It helps with smaller consignments to also note “one of three”, “two of Three” etc on each carton.  This rule is vital if deliveries are one-off.  Poorly packaged and labelled products are the source of most loss and damage experienced in the cold chain delivery system.
6. We do not deliver to residential addresses. This is because the driveways are often unsuitable for large trucks, due to the dimensions, overhanging trees, or because our wheels will damage the driveway.  Also because the time taken to make deliveries to residential addresses can be well above average, and this impacts on our service to other customers.  If you have a delivery that needs to go to a residential address, please find a commercial business nearby, or talk to our staff to assist you with this.  We can usually help solve this problem with you.
7. Temperature checking. We encourage the use of temperature loggers for the entire delivery chain.  We have loggers and can help you with this.  We temperature check all product we collect or that is delivered to us, on a sample basis.  Note that infra-red devices are not suitable for getting anything but a very rough approximation of temperature.  This is mainly because of emissivity.  We won’t go into detail here, but think of the heat shimmer you can see off a car in the sun.  The infra-red device measures that temperature, which can be twice as warm as the actual car body.  As soon as light or sunlight hits brown cardboard or other packaging, emissivity renders infra-red temperatures irrelevant.  For proof of this – try taking your own body temperature on your skin using an IR probe.  You will find that you should be in intensive care.  Our drivers use insertion probes, which can accurately measure the products actual temperature.  Obviously if you are trying to temp check a frozen chicken, unless you drill a hole in it – the best you can do is get an idea of the temperature of the outside of the chicken.  Similarly, trying to temp check bean sprouts or alfalfa is almost impossible as the probe will average the parts of the sprouts touching the probe with the ambient air temp surrounding the probe.  This is also why temp checking should be done before the product leaves the truck.  As soon as products leaves a temperature controlled zone, the air surrounding it and within the carton starts to warm rapidly.  The product itself will not be so volatile, but will start to slowly change – depending upon it’s density and temperature.  As a guide, chilled product should be maintained between 0°C and +7°C.  Frozen should be colder than -12°C, with ice cream having a minimum of -16°C and ideally -20°C or colder.  We can’t pick up ice cream unless it is no warmer than -18°C, and this is marginal.
8. Anything with a glass content needs to be very well wrapped, protected, and clearly labelled as glass and fragile.
9. For collections, we need your advice or manifest no later than 5pm the day prior to collection. Urgent same-day jobs are sometimes possible, but can’t be guaranteed.
10. POD’s (proof of delivery) can be requested by email to pod@tranznorth.co.nz. The best solution is for Tranznorth to give you a logon to our POD portal   This gives you real time access to PODs.  The Carriage of Goods Act outlines the legalities around POD’s and claims.  Tranznorth’s liability ends when we obtain a clean POD.  Please note that writing “STC” on a POD has no meaning in law, and this is still deemed to have accepted delivery in full.  This is because if product is to be claimed as damaged or short delivered, Tranznorth also needs to be able to verify it was not delivered, and this is impossible once the truck has departed.
11. Any export freight must be clearly labelled as export, and include the following :
    1. Destination (On each carton)
    2. Supplier (On each carton)
    3. Frozen/Chilled (On each carton)
    4. Packing slip on outside of carton
    5. E Cert number on label
    6. A Tranznorth Consignment note must be completed and handed to the driver.