Cold store staging where the Logan Motorway meets the M1
EZ Trans provides refrigerated transport across Logan, from Crestmead and Berrinba to Meadowbrook and the Yatala corridor, about 35 km from our Kedron depot. Because the Logan Motorway meets the M1 here, we use Logan cold stores as a mid-point so southbound runs start closer to their drops.
Logan has become one of the busiest cold store precincts in South East Queensland, and the reason is on the map rather than in the sheds. The Logan Motorway meets the Pacific Motorway here, so a pallet held in Crestmead or Berrinba is already past Brisbane’s worst traffic before the day starts. Our refrigerated freight work in Logan is built around that geography.
EZ Trans treats Logan as two things at once: a delivery area with its own food, medical and manufacturing trade, and a staging point for everything heading further south. A southbound load does not have to begin on the far north side of Brisbane. Positioned into a Logan cold store the day before, it leaves with a full delivery window still intact.
Logan’s warehousing base sits in a band either side of the Logan Motorway. The Logan Office of Economic Development describes the city as sitting at the crux of major transport corridors with easy Logan Motorway access, and names Crestmead Logistics Estate along with Motorway Industrial Park, ESR Gilmore Industrial Estate and Wembley Business Park at Berrinba. That band is where most of the cold store capacity we collect from and deliver into sits.
Access varies more than the addresses suggest. Newer Crestmead and Berrinba facilities are built for large-vehicle access, hardstand and recessed docks, so a drop is quick once you are on site. Older stock around Slacks Creek and Woodridge has tighter aprons and street loading, which changes the vehicle we send. Kingston Road, Waterford Road, Beaudesert Road and the Mount Lindesay Highway carry the legs between them, and all four slow noticeably in school traffic.
Distance is not really the issue. Where the day starts is. From Kedron, a vehicle heading south spends its first 40 to 50 minutes simply reaching Logan, and spends them on the Gateway or the inner-city routes where a single incident has consequences. From a Crestmead or Berrinba cold store, that time is already behind you: the truck is at the Logan Motorway and M1 interchange within minutes of loading.
For a Gold Coast or northern New South Wales delivery that has to land before a venue or a distribution centre opens, that is often the difference between arriving inside the receiving window and arriving after it. Logan to Yatala is a matter of minutes, the northern Gold Coast around half an hour, and the whole southbound leg happens before the inbound commuter queue at Springwood forms behind you.
It is not free. Staging adds a handling point, needs product positioned a day ahead and puts it in a store rather than under your own roof. Where that suits, we pair it with temperature-controlled and ambient storage, and where stock is already in Logan we can lift it on short notice through our express courier work.
| Approach | What it suits | Effect on the delivery window | What it needs from you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct from our Kedron depot | Single drops, Logan-only deliveries and freight already at our Brisbane end | Simplest option, but the first 40 to 50 minutes go on reaching Logan | A confirmed pickup time and load details in Brisbane |
| Staged through a Logan cold store | Early southbound runs to Yatala, the Gold Coast or northern New South Wales | Effectively buys back most of a morning, because the run starts past the city | Product positioned a day ahead and a holding temperature agreed |
| On-demand from a Logan cold store | Short-notice orders and shortfalls into southern Brisbane or the Coast | Quoted on the day against distance and traffic at the time of booking | Stock already held in Logan and a contact who can release it |
The mix reflects the precinct: food manufacturing and distribution, imported product broken down close to the motorway, and health freight around Meadowbrook.
Logan also works as a consolidation point for businesses too small to fill a vehicle alone. Two or three producers with a pallet each make a viable southbound run out of Crestmead that none of them could justify by themselves, and that is usually how a lane starts. Order assembly can sit alongside it through our pick, pack and distribution service.
It can, and that is the honest half of the trade-off. Every transfer between a store and a vehicle means a door open, a dock exposed to ambient air and a period when product is neither in a cool room nor in a running unit. Under the food standards, potentially hazardous food must be kept at 5C or colder, or at 60C or hotter, with those limits applying during receipt, storage and transport, so a staging leg sits inside scope, not outside it.
What keeps it sound is dock discipline: vehicles pre-cooled before loading, product held in the chiller rather than on the apron, transfers timed so nothing waits, and a temperature check recorded at each handover so the chain is documented from store to receiver. The Australian Cold Chain Guidelines, released by the Australian Food and Grocery Council in 2017, treat handling, transport and storage as a single chain, which is exactly how a staged run has to be read.
We plan the run around the handling and temperature requirements of the freight, and we will say when staging is the wrong answer for a product. Our post on choosing a logistics partner covers the questions worth asking before you hand a cold load to anyone.
South, the M1 carries on through Yatala and Coomera to the Gold Coast and the Tweed, and our Brisbane to Sydney refrigerated lane begins on the same road. West, the Logan Motorway feeds the Ipswich Motorway and the Cunningham Highway. North, the Gateway Motorway runs back past the airport and port precincts to our Kedron base. Logan sits in the middle of all of it, which is the whole argument for using it as a staging point rather than just a destination.
The full list of places we run to is under service areas, and you can book a Logan collection or delivery once the window is set.
From Crestmead or Berrinba the quickest run to us is the Logan Motorway east to the Gateway, north across the Gateway Bridge, then Sandgate Road and Gympie Road into Kedron: about 35 km and 35 to 45 minutes when the motorways are clear. Check the directions to our Kedron depot before a first pickup.
Every area we cover is listed on the service areas index.
Crestmead and Berrinba are about 35 km from Kedron, roughly 35 to 45 minutes outside peak via the Gateway and Logan motorways. Yatala at the southern end is closer to 55 km. Inbound morning traffic on the Pacific Motorway is the main variable, which is one reason early runs work better here.
Yes. Collections from third party cold stores across Crestmead Logistics Estate, Motorway Industrial Park, ESR Gilmore Industrial Estate and Wembley Business Park at Berrinba are routine. We need the release paperwork, whatever booking reference the site uses and the carrying temperature confirmed before the vehicle arrives at the dock.
Because the first 40 to 50 minutes of a southbound run from Kedron is spent just reaching Logan. Starting from a Logan cold store puts the vehicle at the Logan Motorway and M1 interchange straight away, so a Gold Coast or northern New South Wales drop can land inside an early receiving window.
Yes. The southern end of Logan runs into the Yatala Enterprise Area and Stapylton, which sit directly on the M1 between Beenleigh and Ormeau. Those drops often pair with Gold Coast deliveries on the same southbound run, or with a northbound collection on the way back to Brisbane.
Vehicles are pre-cooled before loading, product is held in the chiller rather than on the dock apron, transfers are timed so nothing waits in ambient air, and temperatures are checked and recorded at each handover. Under the food standards those limits apply during storage and transport alike, so a staging point is in scope.
Give us the estate, the cold store, the temperature and the delivery window you are working to. We will tell you whether a direct run from Kedron or a Logan staging point gets the freight there in time.
