While grapes from the Mediterranean may be considered more desirable, the US has a substantial amount of domestic vineyards, particularly in California. If you have grapes to ship within the United States, learning more about the process before you start can save you trouble later down the road.
Key Takeaways
In this article, I’ll cover all the juicy details of transporting grapes via freight.
In order to transport grapes, they need to be ripe and healthy. Grapes won’t continue to ripen after they are harvested, so they must be picked at just the right time.
Before transport, grapes need to:
Customers may turn down a shipment of grapes if it’s simply not visually appealing, even if there is nothing technically wrong with it. Ensure that all grapes are the correct color, size, and ripeness before attempting to transport them. Otherwise, they may get rejected for not meeting quality standards.
Grapes not intended for processing into juice or wine must be packaged in a particular way to minimize shipping damage. Grapes often have a long transit when shipped within the US, which means they can’t exactly be thrown in a buggy and pulled by horses anymore.
Most of the time, table grapes are shipped in plastic bags with little holes for ventilation, and a ziplock style slider seal. Sometimes, standard clamshell packaging is used to offer more protection to the delicate fruits. Those smaller containers are packaged in a sturdy 10kg (22lb) crate or carton with wool, polyethylene, or cardboard to protect it. Finally, these cartons are palletized for easy shipping.
To palletize grape shipments, here are a few best practices to employ:
Palletizing your shipment has many benefits. Not only does it protect the freight, it also makes it much easier to handle for the carrier transporting it. In some cases, your freight may incur extra fees if it is not palletized, or if it was palletized incorrectly.
Related: The Basics of Cranberry Transportation
Grapes intended for wine or juice must be packaged differently from consumer table grapes. Because juice and wine grapes are not sold to supermarkets for consumers, they do not need to be individually packaged for the grocery store shelves. Instead, wine and juice grapes are best packaged in bulk containers to be sent to juice makers and winemakers.
To transport grapes for wholesale, growers typically utilize wooden or plastic pallet bins. The bins are the same width and length as a normal pallet, so that makes it easy to transport with a forklift. There is no standard height for a pallet bin, and it may be able to accommodate as few as 12 to as many as 50 bushels depending on the type. Once packed, these pallet bins can be stacked on top of each other just like normal pallets.
Although pallet bins are a popular choice because of the low cost, there are many other options for shipping bulk grapes to a juice maker or winemaker, like:
Whether intended for eating or processing into wine and grape juice, these delicate fruits have specific temperature requirements that must be followed to prevent spoilage.
Related: How to Ship Beer by the Truckload
Transporting grapes and other fresh fruit with a short shelf life means employing cold chain logistics. This process involves moving and storing fruits, vegetables, and other commodities at cool/cold temperatures to maintain freshness. This is especially important for grapes, as they are delicate and sensitive to changes in temperature.
Since there are often many stops in the logistics process, that means more than just the truck that moves the grapes needs to be kept cold. Warehouses, trucks, and destination ports must all be the correct temperature to keep the grapes fresh.
A temperature of 0 degrees Celsius, or 32 degrees Fahrenheit, is recommended for storing and transporting grapes. If at any point in the process, the shipment is stored at the wrong temperature, it is likely to be rejected at the destination. This can result in profit loss for the carrier, the shipper, and any involved third parties. To ensure that this does not happen, it is important to only work with trusted, highly qualified carriers.
As with any perishable food, grapes must be transported quickly to ensure freshness. If a shipment takes too long, it may spoil before it reaches its destination—even if it was kept at the correct temperature the whole time!
Even though grapes won’t continue to ripen after harvest, the fruit’s metabolic processes will continue. The grapes can absorb oxygen and excrete carbon dioxide after harvest. This causes starch in the grapes to turn into sugar and can make them go bad. It is important to be aware of this natural process during shipping.
For this reason, grape shippers benefit from having warehousing options in multiple areas if you intend to ship your grapes around the nation. This way, the transit time between the warehouse and the destination can be significantly reduced, and the grapes can arrive as fresh as possible.
It is very important to be aware of fungus and bacteria when transporting grapes. In fact, fungus is one of the most common and obvious causes of grape deterioration when in storage and being transported. A fungus called Botrytis cinerea is a common cause of grape deterioration. It causes grapes to rot and covers them with a gray coating.
Bacteria and fungi require a moist environment to grow, so precautions should be made to ensure that the packaging is not too moist, but not so dry that the grapes shrivel up. Crates and cartons should be well ventilated to encourage airflow, so moisture does not accumulate or stagnate. Grapes should be kept in a semi-humid environment for best results, but there is a fine line between humidity and moisture.
To make sure the shipment is kept at the proper humidity levels, you should inform your carrier of the specific requirements that apply to your shipment. If you fail to do so, they won’t be held liable for grapes that spoil in transit.
Alternatively, you could enlist the help of a freight broker, who would communicate with the carrier on your behalf. They would also be responsible for researching the requirements of your shipment and keeping the carrier informed of your expectations. Since they keep track of all the rules that apply to freight shipping grapes, they’re a huge asset to a busy shipper.
Another tactic used to try to control bacteria, fungi, and diseases is fumigation. Grapes that are selected for shipment are treated with a gas called Sulfur Dioxide to kill the Botrytis cinerea that may have already infected the plant and protect against future contamination of the disease. This form of fumigation is not detrimental to the quality of the grapes or the health of the consumer.
There are two main ways that grapes get fumigated with sulfur dioxide: Total Utilization and sulfur dioxide releasing pads.
Fumigating grapes is tricky due to their delicate nature. The levels of sulfur dioxide used during fumigation have to be carefully calculated, since overexposure could ruin the quality of the fruit.
Signs that the grapes were overexposed to sulfur dioxide are:
As an added benefit to sulfur dioxide fumigation, the process actually prevents the stems of the grapes from turning brown, which makes the bunch look much more visually pleasing and marketable.
Freight costs are a major consideration for any producer or manufacturer. Shipping your products around the U.S. and the world brings it to consumers, so they can more readily make a purchase, and drive immense revenue. If you only sold locally, you would severely limit your potential revenue, so it is incredibly important for any growing business to expand into the realm of interstate shipping.
Grapes must be shipped in a full truckload, or FTL, shipment. This is mostly because they must be kept at a specific temperature during the shipping process, and flavors from other produce may contaminate the grapes. Additionally, the container should not be opened until it reaches the destination to avoid temperature increases. This makes shipping grapes a little more expensive than shipping something like plastic trinkets, which can be shipped LTL.
Some of the factors that are used to determine the cost of the shipment are:
If you want to know the cost of your specific shipment, the best way to do that is to get a quote from a shipping company or a third-party logistics company.
Now that you can answer the question “how are grapes transported?” it’s time to get your next shipment out of the vineyard and onto a truck. We also handle almonds and other freight shipping in California. When you need to run a shipment of delicate freight like grapes and other freight shipping from California to Arizona and more, you need an experienced truckload freight broker who can match you with a carrier to get your grapes there on time and intact.
We can handle all of your logistics needs, including:
Call us at (866) 353-7178 or submit a contact form online to request a quote today!
R+L Global Logistics
315 NE 14th St., Ocala, FL 34470
