Chilled and frozen runs built around the Brisbane Produce Market
EZ Trans runs chilled and frozen transport for Rocklea businesses and the Brisbane Produce Market on Sherwood Road, working the early wholesaler window from roughly 3am. Our Kedron depot sits about 22 kilometres away, so market pallets and loose crates can reach a Brisbane kitchen, cool room or cold store the same morning.
Rocklea trades on early mornings. The Brisbane Produce Market on Sherwood Road is moving well before dawn, and the wholesalers, buyers, packers and food service operators around it need freight collected while the floors are still busy. EZ Trans provides refrigerated transport across the suburb, from a handful of chilled crates lifted off one market stand to full pallet loads leaving the warehouses on the Ipswich Road side.
Our depot at 2/21 Castle Street, Kedron is about 22 kilometres from the market gates, roughly 25 to 30 minutes by road and noticeably quicker before 6am while Ipswich Road is still clear. A fleet that includes temperature-controlled vehicles means a 4am collection off the floor can be with a restaurant group, greengrocer or processor by mid-morning.
Rocklea work falls into three broad shapes. There is market outbound freight, meaning fruit, vegetables and mixed lines bought on the floor that have to reach a kitchen, greengrocer, processor or caterer before service. There is inbound grower freight arriving from the Lockyer Valley, the Granite Belt and further north for wholesalers to sell. Then there is ordinary chilled and frozen distribution for the food manufacturers, meat wholesalers and cold stores sitting in the industrial pocket between Beaudesert Road and the Oxley Creek corridor.
Each of those runs to a different clock. An outbound market load is governed by the buyer’s service time, while an inbound grower load is governed by the wholesaler’s selling day. We plan the run around the handling and temperature requirements of the freight rather than around a standard timetable, and where a consignment has to beat a hard deadline we price it alongside our express courier work.
Trading at the Brisbane Produce Market is concentrated in the small hours. Buyers are on the floor from around 3am and most selling has finished by about 9am, so a carrier either arrives inside that window or collects afterwards from a wholesaler’s cold room. Rocklea bookings are built against that window rather than a nine-to-five day, which is the single biggest difference between this suburb and the rest of our Brisbane service area.
Away from the market floors, the warehouses along Suscatand Street and the Ipswich Road frontage hold cold stores, produce repackers and freight forwarders. Rocklea also sits between Archerfield Airport and the Acacia Ridge rail terminal, so a good share of local pickups are staging movements rather than final deliveries. That pairs with temperature-controlled storage when a consignment lands before the customer is ready to take it.
This question comes up on almost every new Rocklea account, because the same vehicle often carries a wrapped pallet and two dozen loose crates on one run. The format changes loading time, dwell time on site and how the load has to be built.
| Handling format | Best suited to | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Full pallet, shrink-wrapped | Single-line buys such as one variety of melons, potatoes or citrus going to one drop | Needs tail-lift or forklift access at both ends, and wrap restricts air flow around produce loaded warm |
| Stacked crates or cartons, hand-loaded | Mixed buys from several wholesalers heading to restaurants, cafes and small greengrocers | Slow to load in the 3am to 7am rush, so early drops need to sit nearest the door |
| Half pallet or part pallet | Medium volume lines where a full pallet is too much and loose crates are too slow | Stability on the return leg, particularly the Ipswich Road merge, so strapping is usually required |
| Chilled bins and tubs | Wet lines, pre-cut product and seafood moving between Rocklea processors | Sealed lids and drainage, and they must never be stacked under dry cartons |
Where a buyer orders on a repeating pattern we set up a fixed load plan so the driver builds the same way every morning. That approach carries over into our pick, pack and distribution service for customers running multi-drop produce rounds.
Produce leaves a market stand at ambient temperature more often than buyers expect, and the first hour after collection is where shelf life is lost. Food Standards Australia New Zealand is clear that food transported under temperature control must be kept at 5C or colder, or at 60C or hotter, and that requirement covers the transport leg, not only storage at either end.
Scale is the other factor. Brisbane Markets Limited describes the Rocklea site as Queensland’s only central fruit and vegetable market, with more than 45 wholesalers trading produce from over 7,000 growers to more than 800 registered buyers five days a week. When that many parties touch one consignment, the temperature record for the transport leg is often the only clean evidence a buyer holds.
So we pre-cool the vehicle before a market collection, record the set point and product temperature at pickup and at delivery, and keep chilled and frozen freight physically separated. We do not hold food safety accreditation on a customer’s behalf. What we do is plan the run around the handling and temperature requirements of the freight and hand back the paperwork for the customer’s own records, which is the wider argument made in our article on moving temperature-sensitive goods.
Rocklea sits on the Oxley Creek flood plain close to the Brisbane River, and buyers here raise wet-weather contingency earlier in the conversation than buyers anywhere else we service. The 2011 and 2022 events both put water through parts of the precinct, and lesser rainfall is enough to close low sections of the Rocklea approaches. Planning for it is a normal part of quoting a standing market run.
Coming to us from Rocklea, the straightforward run is Ipswich Road north to the Pacific Motorway and the Inner City Bypass, then Lutwyche Road up to Kedron, about 22 kilometres and 25 to 35 minutes depending on the hour. The yard is at 2/21 Castle Street, and the full directions to our Kedron depot cover access and turning room for larger vehicles.
Every area we cover is listed on the service areas index.
Yes. Pre-dawn collections are the normal pattern for Rocklea, and we book them against the market trading window rather than office hours. We ask for the wholesaler name, the trading floor and a contact on site so the driver is not searching the complex. An early start also clears Ipswich Road before it thickens.
About 22 kilometres by road, which is roughly 25 to 30 minutes outside peak and quicker before 6am. Afternoon peak on Ipswich Road and the Inner City Bypass can push it past 35 minutes, so we set collection times against the traffic that day rather than quoting a fixed transit.
We do. A single Rocklea run regularly picks up from more than one stand and consolidates onto one vehicle, which cuts the number of trips and the total time freight spends off temperature. We need the stand or cold room details for each pickup and a sensible order of collection before the driver starts.
The set point is agreed with the customer, because produce lines vary and some are damaged by running too cold. For potentially hazardous food the applicable requirement is 5C or colder under the Food Standards Code, and we record the set point and product temperature at both ends of the Rocklea leg.
Yes. Market buys regularly move to the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich and Toowoomba on the same day they are bought, and further afield on scheduled work. The full list of places we run to is on our <a href=”/service-areas/”>service areas</a> page, and pricing depends on distance, temperature and volume.
Tell us the wholesaler, the temperature the freight needs and where it has to land, and we will quote the run and confirm the collection window. You can book a job online or call the depot direct and speak to the operations team.
