Reefer dispatch that plans the appointment around your break, not the other way around
Refrigerated freight pays for being exact. Shippers load late, produce sheds run on harvest time, receivers want you in the door at 04:00, and a 10-hour break has to land somewhere between all of that. Our reefer dispatchers start with the appointment and your remaining hours, then work backward to a pickup time and a break that actually fit. The rate gets negotiated with the timing already priced in, and the load reaches you as a rate confirmation for your yes or no before anything is booked.
RATE CON · 21:00
SALINAS -> PHOENIX · 34°F
$2,380
CONFIRMED
Reefer dispatch, quick answers
The questions reefer operators ask us most, answered first. Longer explanations, the appointment planner and the exact wording of the agricultural exemption follow below.
Will the appointment survive your break? Try the planner
This is the math our dispatchers run before a reefer load reaches your phone. Set the time you arrive at the shed, how long loading takes, the miles, the delivery appointment and the hours you have left. The planner drives the run under the 11-hour, 14-hour and 30-minute rules, drops in a 10-hour break where your clock runs out, and tells you whether you make the door. The default is a typical produce story: a driver with most of the day already used loads in the evening, drives a few hours, rests overnight and delivers the next afternoon.
REEFER APPOINTMENT PLANNEREXAMPLE · PLANNING ESTIMATE
ON TIME · 01:14 TO SPARE
Your 10-hour break starts at 00:00 +1, about 208 miles in. Arrival 16:46 +1.
Assumes 52 mph average. 11/14/10-hour and 30-minute rules from 49 CFR 395.3; your ELD is the legal record.
Try moving the shed arrival two hours later and watch the break slide down the road, or add 200 miles and see the appointment turn red. When the answer is red, the right move is a later appointment or a different load, never a long night. We ask receivers for appointment changes before you're committed, because asking after you're late costs you the relationship and sometimes the load.
The agricultural commodity exemption, exactly as written
Reefer drivers hear a lot of half-truths about the agricultural exemption. Here is what the rule actually says. Under 49 CFR 395.1(k), the hours of service rules in Part 395 do not apply during planting and harvesting periods, as each State determines them, to drivers transporting agricultural commodities from the source of those commodities to a location within a 150 air-mile radius of the source. The same paragraph covers farm supplies moving from distribution points within 150 air miles, and livestock within 150 air miles of its final destination.
What that means on a real load: inside the 150 air-mile radius from the source, during the State's planting and harvesting period, the Part 395 limits don't apply. Once the truck goes beyond that radius, the hours of service rules apply for the rest of the trip, and you need to be logging. FMCSA has published guidance on what counts as the source of a commodity and how the radius works, and some loads that start at packing sheds or cold storage raise real questions.
So we treat it this way: the exemption is yours to confirm, load by load, against the rule and FMCSA's guidance, and we never plan a run that only works if it applies. If your load qualifies, great; your plan has more room. If it doesn't, the plan was already legal. This page is not legal advice, and neither is any dispatcher's opinion on the exemption. The agricultural HOS exemption in the glossary
Late sheds, early doors: how we handle produce timing
Produce sheds load when the product is ready, not when your appointment sheet says. A 14:00 pickup turns into 21:00 because the field crew ran late, and the receiver 600 miles away still expects you at 06:00. That collision is where reefer drivers get pushed toward bad decisions, and it's the part a dispatcher should absorb.
Our approach: we ask the shipper for a realistic load time, not a hopeful one, and we book the delivery appointment with your 10-hour break already counted. When the shed runs late anyway, we call the broker and the receiver while you wait, document the delay for detention or layover, and move the appointment. The receiver hears it from us early, not from an empty door at 06:00. The one thing we won't do is ask you to make up the lost time by running past your limits.
Most receivers would rather move an appointment than turn away a load that arrives late, and almost all of them would rather hear about it the evening before than at the door. A reefer dispatcher who calls early keeps your on-time record clean even when the shed didn't. Over a season, that record is worth more than any single load, because it's what gets you offered the next good one.
EXAMPLE · APPOINTMENT MOVED 06:00 -> 14:00 +1 SO THE 10-HOUR BREAK FITS
What a reefer dispatcher checks before you see the load
Temperature and mode
Pickup reality
Delivery window
Lumper and detention terms
Fuel for the unit
The reload
Why reefer days burn more of the clock
A reefer day has more on-duty time hiding in it than a dry van day. There's the pre-trip on the unit itself, checking the set point and fuel. There's pre-cooling, which can mean showing up early and waiting. There's the pulp temperature check at the shed and the extra paperwork when a load is rejected or partially refused. All of that counts against the 14-hour window, which keeps running from the moment you come on duty (49 CFR 395.3(a)(2)).
That's why our planning starts from the window, not the map. A 600-mile reefer run isn't 11 hours of driving; it's 11 hours of driving plus a shed that might load late, plus a fuel stop for the truck and one for the unit, plus a receiver who may not take you early. We build those into the plan up front so the 10-hour break lands somewhere safe and legal, not on a ramp at 03:00 because the plan ran out.
WHERE THE 14-HOUR WINDOW GOESEXAMPLE
Reefer day, as planned
- Unit pre-trip & pre-cool
- Shed wait & loading
- Driving
- Break & fuel
A reefer week, planned the long way round
EXAMPLE, one owner-operator with a 53 ft reefer based in Phoenix. Monday: a produce load out of the Salinas Valley, loading quoted for 14:00 and actually ready at 21:00; the delivery appointment was moved before the driver left the shed, so the 10-hour break fit on the way. Wednesday: a frozen load from a cold storage warehouse to Dallas, with a lumper paid at the dock and reimbursed with the receipt. Thursday: a 4-hour wait at a grocery DC turned into a detention claim filed the same day, and the unit's fuel burn was noted on it. Friday: a load back west, booked Wednesday night while the driver slept. Two loads were declined that week because their appointments only worked by skipping the break.
Reefer dispatch fits owner-operators and small fleets running produce, frozen and temperature-controlled freight on spot or mixed lanes. If you already run a steady dedicated grocery contract with fixed appointments, a desk adds less, and we'll say so on the setup call.
What reefer dispatch costs
Same fee as every other truck we dispatch: 5% of gross for one reefer with authority older than 6 months, 7% while your MC is under 6 months, and 4% for fleets of 2 or more trucks on the limited-time fleet rate. No setup fee, no minimums, month to month, and nothing on a week you don't haul. Reefer doesn't cost more to dispatch here, even though it takes more planning. Full pricing
- one reefer, authority 6+ months
- 5%
- new MC, first 6 months
- 7%
- fleets of 2+ (limited time)
- 4%
- setup fee or minimums
- $0
Cold freight, warm relationships, legal hours
Apply in about 2 minutes. You confirm every load before it's booked.
Start reefer dispatch