I run Pete’s Greens, a specialty organic vegetable farm located high in the hills of Vermont’s climatically challenged Northeast Kingdom. We focus on the production of salad and braising greens, and are rapidly diversifying into many other specialty crops. We sell to over 30 stores and restaurants, and our twice weekly delivery route makes a 100-mile loop. Producing greens over a long season (March through December), high quality, and attentive marketing has allowed Pete’s Greens to grow rapidly in the five years we’ve been in business.

I spent my first three years in business delivering produce in various pickup trucks with caps on the back. While this system works it sure gets old climbing to the front of the truck bed to retrieve produce boxes. Plus, I was struck by the fact that the time we spend driving around could serve a double purpose – advertising! I used to sell Christmas trees in Brooklyn and every day a long flatbed truck came by with a huge electronic sign mounted in the back. Businesses hired this truck to do nothing more than drive around all day displaying their logo! I decided to create a delivery vehicle that would catch every eye on the road and help build the Pete’s Greens brand name.

I’d seen the fresh seafood companies delivering fish in coolers that slide into the back of a pickup truck. That seemed like a good system so I bought a used cooler with a compressor that runs off the truck motor or plugs into an outlet ($2,500), and a Ford F250 pickup rugged enough to carry the very heavy cooler. I recruited eight of my strongest friends, we slid the cooler into the back of the truck, and I was struck by how ridiculous it was to drive all this weight around just to deliver some greens which weigh next to nothing. I sold the truck, kept the cooler as a portable and very handy walk-in cooler, and reconsidered the options.

I ended up with a 2WD Toyota pickup with a homemade box built on the back. The truck is perfect. It gets good mileage, is dependable, cheap to maintain, small enough to get into tight spots, and sporty enough that my delivery driver enjoys driving it. I added a couple leaf springs to beef up the weak suspension in the rear of the truck. The box is built from 2 by 2 framing and sheathed with 3/8-inch plywood. The plywood is screwed and glued (important for rigidity) to the frame. The box is light enough that two people can lift it on and off the truck There is a very wide door at the rear of the box for easy access and the truck bed is low enough that it is a comfortable step up into the bed. This last point is important – a 4WD or higher 2WD truck would be much more cumbersome to enter and exit with an armload of produce. The box is covered with 2 coats of white paint on the inside and 3 coats on the outside. It took a good bit of joint filling and sanding to make the exterior surface smooth enough for the artwork that followed.

My sister is an artist and I commissioned her through barter to paint the box with the salad greens that appear in our mixes. She used standard hardware store latex paint. It was a lot of work but it turned out great. People frequently smile and wave when they see the truck coming and chefs have approached our delivery driver at gas stations to ask “Where can we get your greens?” I think the subconcious effect may be even more important. The image we present to the world through our truck is that of a bright, cheerful, happy farm, which, combined with our other marketing and a great product, makes for strong and growing demand.

The box is uninsulated and unrefrigerated. We’ve found that if the truck is packed fairly full of chilled produce it is still cool at the end of a four-hour delivery in the middle of the summer. Any longer than four hours and the produce gets unacceptably warm. I suspect that 2 inches of foam insulation on the inside of the box would allow for a 6-8 hour delivery.
The most fun we’ve had with the delivery truck is taking it in our town’s 4th of July parade. We draped it in flowers, positioned the crew up on top of the box, and threw baby arugula to the crowds. It was a hit.