Mack Trucks
200501 Bronco Wine Company 5f3e9a5b62a00

Mack’s RoadLife series highlights food-grade liquid tank carriers

Sept. 30, 2020
Bronco Wine Company moving wine in California, Texas-based Reliant Holdings delivering liquid CO2 to restaurants, bottlers

MACK Trucks spotlighted two tank truck carriers who haul food-grade liquids in its RoadLife 2.0 Series, which celebrates the hard-working men and women in the trucking industry who keep the world moving.

Bronco Wine Company, which transports bulk wine in California, appeared in the sixth episode of the Amazon Prime Video series, which is produced by Mack’s marketing team, and Reliant Holdings, which supplies liquid carbon dioxide (CO2) and dry ice to a variety of industries, was featured in the seventh episode.

Family-owned, Ceres CA-based winery Bronco Wine Company boasts brands that are sold in more than 90 countries. And whether its moving grapes from the vineyard, transporting bulk wine to bottling facilities or delivering cases to distribution centers and customers, the company says it depends on its lightweight Mack Anthem models to maximize payloads and keep its wine flowing. All episodes are available at roadlife.tv.

“Bronco Wine Company is vertically integrated, from the vineyard to the table, and they need versatile trucks that can handle each step of the winemaking process,” said John Walsh, Mack Trucks vice president of marketing. “Whether hauling grapes or finished cases, they also require trucks that can haul the most product on every run, and the Mack Anthem fits the bill.”

Crush rush

The RoadLife team visited Bronco Wine Company during crush season, a very busy time between August and November when truckloads of grapes are coming in from the vineyards. Once processed, the grape juice begins its transformation into wine, eventually winding up in wine glasses around the county.

“We have acres of vineyards from Bakersfield all the way up into the Napa region, with trucks running the entire length of (Highway) 99 and (Interstate) 5, and up to (Hwy) 12, so during harvest season … we’ll bring in many, many trucks full of grapes,” said Byron Baker of Bivio Trucking, the logistics arm of Bronco Wine Company.

“The juice is pumped over into the cellars where they ferment the wine, get it wine ready, and then it’s hauled up to our own bottling facilities.

“Again, with our own trucks, we bring those finished goods back down here to the main distribution center, and product’s then put in the location, and is picked for customers’ orders, and then its put back on the trucks to transfer back out to the customers around California and nationwide.”

As one of the largest winemakers in the U.S., Bronco’s facilities are located throughout California, meaning the right trucks were needed to keep operations working.

“They were looking for lightweight trucks,” said Robert Tennies, Mack Trucks sales manager at Western Truck Center. “They were looking for a spec that fit their needs so they could get as much wine juice on their tankers and build the tankers as big as possible, to haul the biggest payload and get it from Point A to Point B.”

Unmistakable design

The Mack Anthem model stands out with its bold grille and unmistakable design. Featuring optimized aerodynamics for improved fuel efficiency, the Anthem delivers the right mix of Mack’s legendary durability in a lightweight package, making it ideal for weight-sensitive applications.

“Mack is really making a name for itself,” Baker said. “The trucks look fantastic. It’s always been a selling point of ours when we’re talking to new customers, saying ‘Hey, wait till you see our trucks. They’re sharp.’”

Bronco Wine Company’s Fred Franzia, whose grandfather, Giuseppe Franzia, arrived in California in 1893, agrees, saying drivers rave about the trucks’ durability and comfort. “Now we have seven of them in the fleet and everybody swears by them,” he said.

“They like them, so we’re going to be buying more.”

Reliable delivery

Texas-based Reliant Holdings, founded in 1989, provides liquid CO2 to a wide range of industries through its 12 subsidiaries, including restaurants and convenience stores for their beverage systems, and bulk quantities for food processing and beverage bottling plants. The company also provides CO2 to oil and gas well operators for use in enhanced oil recovery projects.

“My father bought some ranching property in New Mexico, and underneath that property was one of the largest naturally occurring sources of CO2 in the country,” said Vance Vanderburg, chief operating officer at Reliant Holdings. “Today, under the umbrella of Reliant Holdings, we have a number of profit centers that deliver CO2 products.”

With oil and gas customers located across western Texas and eastern New Mexico, Reliant needed trucks that could withstand the unimproved roads commonly found in oil patches.

“Up to 95% of our trucks’ lives can be on an unpaved road, and with our Mack trucks, it’s unbelievable how much better they’ve done in that environment,” Vanderburg said. “They hold up better, and you can bring one out of that environment, put it back on-highway and still get a useful life out of it.”

Safety first

Safety is a core value of Reliant, and the Anthem model delivers with a number of standard and available features

“Safety features added to the Mack Anthem are really starting to attract fleets,” said Don Freeman, sales manager at Bruckner Truck Sales. “They’re needed not only to protect drivers, but also to meet increasing insurance demands.”

Mack Anthem models come standard with Mack Road Stability Advantage by Bendix, a fully electronic stability control system designed to help mitigate the chances of a rollover or jackknife incident, and Bendix Wingman Fusion, a camera- and radar-based system that provides collision mitigation, adaptive cruise control and lane departure warning capabilities.

“When we go to renew our insurance, and we tell them what kind of truck we’re spec-ing out, we’re going to get a discount,” Vanderburg said. “If you spend a little more for safety equipment in a truck, it’s going to pay you back.”        

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Commercial Vehicle Staff | staff