MONCTON, N.B. – Shippers are unlikely to trend back to private trucking despite signs that highway freight rates are primed for lift off, says the president of one of Canada’s top beer brewers.

Moosehead Breweries President Andrew Oland told carriers attending the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association‘s annual conference that he has no interest in running his own fleet again and doesn’t think the majority of shippers do either.

"We got out of the trucking business because we’re in the brewery business. I’d be surprised if a lot more shippers did it because many don’t have the core competencies," said Oland in response to a question by Armour Transportation boss Wes Armour about how shippers might react to the increasing cost of transportation.

Matthew Bragg, of Nova Scotia’s Oxford Frozen Foods, one of the world’s largest blueberry producers, concurs. "I can’t imagine a manufacturer being better at trucking than manufacturing or better than most of the carriers (already out there)," says Bragg, who notes that his company even outsources the shunting of trailers around the yard.

There’s a wildcard, however.

The impending driver shortage is top of mind for shippers, in this part of the country especially, and if the labor crunch is deep enough, Oland guesses that some manufacturers and shippers could move towards buying their own trucks and hiring drivers in order to secure capacity long-term.

"I’m really worried where you’re going to find drivers five to 15 years from now and what that’s going to do for my quality and my costs as well."

Oland and Bragg were invited to the APTA event to discuss primarily the shipper-carrier relationship in the post 9-11, post Great Recession business environment.

While it’s obvious supply chains are being forced to adapt to market changes, the three S’s between Moosehead and its preferred carriers remain constant:

Safety and security, Service and Sustainability.

The first is paramount for Moosehead, perhaps a little more than some other shippers. "My business is about my brand and my brand is on your trucks," says Oland. "If something goes wrong and a load of Mooshead goes off the road, the media won’t talk about trucking company ABC, it’ll focus on Moosehead.

"The media loves the beer business and loves to talk about it."

Beer brewing, like car building, is a just-in-time operation so dependability, more than anything else, is what will probably determine whether you can haul hops scotch.

"No one goes to the beer store and leaves because they’re out of Moosehead Light. They’ll just buy someone else’s," says Oland.

Beer is a heavy product and not cheap to transport by truck, but Oland prefers shipping by truck over rail. He says the back-and-forth momentum of a rail car can shift pallets and damage bottles and cans more than tractor-trailers rolling on pavement do.

Until now Oland and Bragg admit to not having spent a whole lot of time evaluating carriers beyond a simple "pass or fail" test based on provincial ratings, insurance coverage and service record, but that’s changing with the increased scrutiny placed on safety compliance, liability, and, eventually, the supply chain’s environmental footprint.

"We’re moving towards a much more sophisticated evaluation and probably demanding a lot more of suppliers," says Oland.