Chilled and frozen runs from Kedron, landing before service
EZ Trans runs refrigerated transport from our Kedron depot in Brisbane to the Gold Coast, about 85 km down the M1 and roughly 60 to 75 minutes outside peak. We schedule chilled and frozen deliveries to restaurants, cafes and venues to land before service starts, staging through the Yatala corridor.
The Gold Coast buys food on a clock the rest of the region does not keep. A single strip in Broadbeach or Surfers Paradise holds a run of kitchens that all open within the same hour, and every one of them needs its refrigerated transport to arrive before the first table is seated. That is a scheduling problem more than a distance problem: the drive is short, the window is narrow.
EZ Trans works the Brisbane to Gold Coast lane as a scheduled run with a fixed departure, not a trip that leaves when loading finishes. Loads are consolidated at Kedron, staged where it helps through the Yatala and Ormeau industrial corridor, and dropped in a sequence built around each venue’s access and service time. Chilled and frozen lines are planned as separate temperature requirements, not one cold load.
From 2/21 Castle Street, Kedron, the Coast is about 85 km: Gympie Road to the Gateway, then the Pacific Motorway south past Loganholme, Beenleigh and Yatala. Outside peak that is roughly 60 to 75 minutes, and inside a Friday afternoon peak in December it is considerably more. Capacity is held on the lane for urgent one-off work through our express courier service.
A kitchen’s usable receiving window is narrower than its trading hours. Stock is checked in during prep, not during service, so a chilled drop at 11:30 for a midday opening often finds nobody free to take it. Working back from lunch, freight needs to be on the Coast between roughly 5:30 and 8:00am, which has the useful effect of running against the morning flow. Where a load is ready before the truck is, we hold it in temperature-controlled storage at Kedron.
Return legs get the same treatment. A vehicle finishing its drops at 8:00am is better used on a Yatala or Ormeau collection than sitting in the queue north.
The right slot depends on your real constraint: the service time, the staffing on the floor, or an order that has already gone wrong.
| Delivery option | What it suits | Arrival certainty | What the venue needs ready |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early-morning pre-service | Venues with a fixed opening time and a full day of trade ahead | Highest: the run departs before the M1 loads up | A receiver on site, or agreed access and a nominated cool room |
| Midday scheduled | Retail, grocery and all-day venues with staff on hand | Good, subject to how the morning drops and midday traffic ran | Clear dock or kerbside access at the agreed time |
| On-demand express | A missed line, a menu change or an event top-up | Quoted per job on distance and traffic at the time of booking | A contact on site and a delivery point a vehicle can reach |
All three are set up the same way, through our booking form.
Freight comes off the M1 in the industrial north and works south into the venues. Yatala Enterprise Area, Stapylton, Ormeau and Coomera hold the cold stores, food manufacturers and distributors. Molendinar, Ashmore and Nerang are the mid-city trade base closest to Surfers Paradise, and Burleigh Heads and Currumbin cover the south. Deliveries then run the Gold Coast Highway, Bermuda Street and the Smith Street Motorway into Southport, Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach, Bundall, Robina and down to Coolangatta.
This is the biggest single variable on the Coast. A Robina or Pacific Fair tenancy has a shared dock, a booking system and a trolley run to the door. A beachfront restaurant on the Esplanade may have a loading zone shared with rideshare traffic and a kitchen upstairs. We ask which of the two you are before quoting, because it decides the vehicle, the drop time and sometimes the hour. Other places we run to are listed under service areas.
Coast demand is not flat, and neither is access. Venue ordering lifts through the December and January period, across every school holiday block and over long weekends, which is exactly when the M1 and the local street network are least cooperative. Event weekends compress it further: road closures and grandstand builds around Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach and Main Beach can shut a loading zone that worked the week before.
We plan those dates with more time in the run and confirm the access point again before the week starts rather than assuming last month’s route still works.
Under the food standards, potentially hazardous food must be kept at 5C or colder, or 60C or hotter, with those limits applying through receipt, storage and transport. A short lane is not a low-risk lane: 85 km with six drops opens the doors far more often than a long haul with one.
So the control sits at the door rather than in the drive. Vehicles are pre-cooled before loading, drops are sequenced to cut door-open time, and temperatures are checked and recorded at load and delivery so a venue’s receiving paperwork matches what came off. The Australian Cold Chain Guidelines, released by the Australian Food and Grocery Council in 2017, treat handling, transport and storage as one chain. We plan the run around the handling and temperature requirements of the freight, and our post on transport for temperature-sensitive goods sets out why.
Coming north from the Coast it is the M1 in reverse: Pacific Motorway to the Gateway, then across to Kedron, about an hour and a quarter once the northbound queue at Rochedale has cleared. The depot is at 2/21 Castle Street, just off Gympie Road. Full directions to our Kedron depot are here.
Every area we cover is listed on the service areas index.
The Gold Coast is about 85 km from our Kedron depot, roughly 60 to 75 minutes outside peak on the M1. Northern drops at Coomera or Helensvale are quicker, and Coolangatta near the Tweed border adds around half an hour. Peak traffic, wet weather and holiday weekends stretch all of those figures.
Yes. Pre-service delivery is the normal pattern on this lane: the vehicle leaves Kedron early and drops on the Coast between roughly 5:30 and 8:00am, before the northbound M1 queue builds. It needs an agreed access arrangement, either someone on site to receive the load or a nominated cool room.
Most beachfront and Esplanade venues do not have one, so we plan for kerbside work: a smaller vehicle where the street demands it, a loading zone or service lane, and time for a trolley run to the door. Tell us the access point when booking, because it changes the vehicle we send.
Yes. Collections from manufacturers, cold stores and distributors in the Yatala Enterprise Area, Stapylton, Ormeau and Coomera are a regular part of the lane and often fill the return leg to Brisbane. Pairing a Coast delivery with a northbound pickup usually makes both movements cheaper than booking them separately.
Food transported under temperature control has to be kept at 5C or colder, or hot at 60C or hotter, and those limits apply during transport as well as storage. Frozen product runs to its own specification. We set the vehicle to what your freight needs and confirm it when quoting.
Tell us the venues, the temperature your product needs and the service time you have to beat. We will quote the run, set the departure and confirm access at each drop.
