About a year ago, Loop Fresh Produce of McAllen, TX and the Allen Lund Co. of Los Angeles formed an alliance to meet the needs of mutual customers shipping product from south Texas. The partnership has proved so successful that Loop and Lund is already expanding its service areas.

This season LTL transportation services are focused on expansion into the Northeast and Midwest, in addition to major markets in the Southeast and Texas.

“This season we plan to increase our LTL service frequency into Midwest and Northeast receivers,” said Scott Fletcher, who manages Lund’s Dallas office.

Added Loop Vice President of Business Development John McGuire, “Together Loop and Lund have put together a service package which can assist importers and distributors in effectively distributing their product direct to customers’ facilities throughout the eastern U.S. marketplace. Some shippers choose to redistribute their products from a forwarding facility in the Northeast. Our services allow shippers to ship direct to retail DCs in these important markets, reducing the overall time and cost to make deliveries.”

As the alliance matures, Lund has added a new employee, Juan Garcia, based out of Loop’s McAllen facility dedicated to recruiting quality carriers and coordinating outbound loading with drivers.

“Our focus has been addressing some of the challenges associated with shipping less-than-truckload (LTL) quantities of fresh produce from the McAllen area,” said McGuire. “The combination of Loop’s cooler operations and ALC’s transportation expertise allow us to bring new services to the market. Loop provides quality cooler services, quality control, and repack capabilities. Our collaboration and process improvements we are implementing with Allen Lund Co. mean customers have a partner focused on more than a single part of the supply chain, leading to more consistent on-time deliveries.”

Added Fletcher, “We have enjoyed developing a working relationship with Loop. Loop has a lot of similarities to the Allen Lund Company in that we both work to operate in our areas of specialty in an open, honest, and ethical manner. The Allen Lund Co. has long been involved in the transportation of fresh produce and realizes that McAllen and the importation of fresh Mexican produce is a large and growing market.”

In addition to the transportation partnership with Lund, Loop “continues to make further inroads with other value-added services, including repack capabilities and quality control inspections,” McGuire said.

Meanwhile, the Lund Co. “is taking steps to build its presence in the Rio Grande Valley market and has been very pleased with the partner that we’ve found in Loop,” Fletcher said.

“The Allen Lund Co. has also recently opened an office in McAllen with our sights set on being a premier transportation brokerage source for both domestic and international produce shipping out of the RGV market,” he added.

Both companies will be exhibiting at PMA Fresh Summit this October in New Orleans.

Loop will be in Booth 5255 while Allen Lund will have Booth 1503.