Feeding the Five Thousand

DING THE FIVE THOUSAND

AS THE COST OF LIVING IN TODAY’S SOCIETY CONTINUES TO RISE, PROVIDING NUTRITIOUS FOOD TO THOSE LESS FORTUNATE IS BECOMING INCREASINGLY CRITICAL. THE FOODBASKET AT MARYBOROUGH HAS RISEN TO THIS CHALLENGE, WITH THE HELP OF A NEW HINO 500 SERIES 10-PALLET TRUCK.

In common with many regional cities in Australia, Maryborough on the central Queensland coast has been saddled with the double whammy of a growing unemployment rate and an aging population – circumstances which lead to many people having restricted means to afford the basic necessities oflife. As a Christian church with a mission heart for helping those in need, LifeChurch at Maryborough in 2008 established the FoodBasket – a low-cost food club that supports families and individuals on low incomes by providing everyday food items and household staples at well below retail prices. Those with either a valid Health Care or Pension card can avail of the service which aims to consistently supply a wide range of ever-changing food items to this sector of the community. Given the unemployment rate in Maryborough is reported to be one of highest among Australian cities, the extremely high demand for the services of FoodBasket is hardly surprising. As much of the food is sourced from Brisbane, about 270km south of Maryborough, the logistics of transporting the goods – which includes ambient, chilled and frozen products – is a critical aspect of the not-for-profit organisation. The man in charge of this is Mick Wait, who started as a casual truck driver four years ago and two years later rose to the position of Manager. Being a former long-distance truck driver, Mick possesses the necessary skills to deliver the goods, as well as a caring heart for helping those in need within his local community. As such, it’s obvious he gains a great deal of satisfaction from doing his job well. “We’re a ministry of LifeChurch Maryborough and we operate a small retail not-for-profit grocery store,” Mick explains. “Anyone with a Health Care or Pension card is welcome to become

Hino 500 Series fitted with 10-pallet refrigerated body.

“Moving to the new truck brought us many benefits, most importantly, it’s a lot bigger. We’ve gone from a 3.9 tonne payload to 7.0 tonnes with the new Hino.”

Mick Wait The FoodBasket

a member, which entitles them to shop here. We have lots of either free or really low-cost items available.” The food items come from a variety of sources, some free and others purchased at low prices, which enables all the operating costs to be covered. “We are largely funded by the minimal prices we charge for our grocery products, along with some small grants we receive from the government,” Mick says. “While the grants are greatly appreciated, the majority of the running costs are covered by our customers. “Our three main sources for food are Foodbank, SecondBite and a number of food wholesalers that are able to give us significant discounts for buying in bulk. We source all the food as cheaply as we can so that we don’t need to charge much to cover our costs.” All of the food is transported to the FoodBasket’s Maryborough premise from various locations around Brisbane in a Hino 500 Series Standard Cab truck fitted with a 10-pallet refrigerated body. The unit was supplied by Brisbane-based Scully Refrigerated Special Vehicles (Scully RSV) and replaced an older Japanese truck with a six-pallet body. According to Mick, the new Hino has made a phenomenal difference to the operation due to a number of improvements over the old truck, not least that it can carry nearly twice the cargo while at the same time using precious little more fuel. Another big plus is that the Carrier refrigeration unit can be plugged into mains power when stationary, enabling the FoodBasket to use the truck as an overflow cold storage facility when it’s not on the road. “Our previous truck had a six-pallet body with the refrigeration compressor running off the truck’s engine which wasn’t ideal,” Mick explained. “It worked okay while the vehicle was moving but when it was stationary with the engine idling it really didn’t have the capacity to maintain the required temperature, particularly in the middle of summer. “The new unit has no problems pulling the temperature down, regardless of the freight or the time of year,” he asserts, adding that the difference between the new and previous truck is like chalk and cheese. “Moving to the new truck brought us many benefits most importantly it’s a lot bigger. We’ve gone from a 3.9 tonne payload to 7.0 tonnes with the new Hino.” He adds, “It’s also significantly more comfortable and much nicer to drive – thanks to all the safety features.” Mick says he particularly likes the adaptive cruise control which he puts to good use on the Bruce Highway running between Brisbane and Maryborough. “It really is a handy bit of kit,” he enthuses, adding that it takes some stress away from the driving task by enabling the truck to cruise with the traffic flow without the driver needing to intervene if the vehicles ahead slow down. On the topic of fuel consumption, Mick says the old truck used almost as much fuel as the new Hino, while carrying little more than half the weight. “On a standard run where I go down empty and bring back a full load from Foodbank the new truck uses seven litres more diesel than the old one but brings back nearly twice as much freight. That’s a pretty impressive boost to the bottom line,” he says. The actual fuel savings are, in fact, a lot higher considering Mick now does two trips to Brisbane a week where with the old truck three to four trips a week were done to transport the same amount oftucker. He also mentions a couple of other ways the new truck is saving the company precious money. “The new truck is significantly cheaper to insure than the old one, perhaps due to the added safety features, and because it has a 20,000km service interval compared to the 10,000km interval of the old truck, we’re saving around $150 each service,” he says. Mick’s prior driving experience was with prime movers including Kenworth,

Scania and Western Star, so driving a ‘little’ truck was new in many ways for him. “I was a bit hesitant going with a Hino because I’d never driven one before, but now that I’ve driven it for nearly a year I’m very happy we chose to buy a Hino.” Interestingly, the truck was bought outright from revenue saved up over the last ten years, in addition to a government grant, and Mick says he is also grateful for the extra care and assistance offered by Scully RSV in supplying the vehicle. “Scully gave us a generous discount on the purchase price and also provided the signwriting for the truck at no cost to us which was very decent of them,” Mick explains. “We also received a grant of $17,000 from the Federal Government which was a great help too.” There’s something consoling about the FoodBasket store, existing as it does, non-profit, solely for the benefit of those in need. Because LifeChurch has invested in the latest trucking technology in the form of a Hino 500 Series Standard Cab and Scully RSV body with Carrier fridge plant, the combined increased cost efficiencies enable more people who live in Maryborough to receive much-needed help from this organisation. In these times of economic hardship for many, there’s also real value in that.

The new Hino has almost doubled the payload for FoodBasket.

YOUR ACCIDENT REPAIR SPECIALIST 4 x state of the art spray booths • New Sandblasting facility • Custom built sleepers • Towing & salvage Sleeper cab cooling solutions • Custom modifi cations • Chassis alignment specialists

TOKYO APPOINTMENT IN

THE TOKYO MOTOR SHOW IS UNIVERSALLY RECOGNISED AS ONE OF THE MAJOR EVENTS OF ITS TYPE IN THE WORLD. THE 2019 EDITION WAS A LITTLE DIFFERENT TO PAST ITERATIONS WITH EXHIBITORS SPREAD ACROSS TWO SEPARATE SITES. FORTUNATELY, THE FOUR JAPANESE TRUCK MANUFACTURERS WERE ABLE TO SHARE THE ONE PAVILION, WITH MAJOR PASSENGER VEHICLE MAKERS TOYOTA AND SUBARU IN A CONNECTED PAVILION.

INNOVATION FOR THE FUTURE

Definitely the best of the truck stands and not just because they were picking up our tab. Display Highlight: the Quon Concept 202X future concept truck which has the capabilities of being intricately connected to its surroundings, including other trucks, infrastructure and people.

1. UD’s Quester is a model intended for ‘developing’ nations and at Tokyo it premiered with the ESCOT Automated manual transmission. 2. UD Raijin electromobility demonstrator. A hybrid based on the Quon. 3. Battery on Quon hybrid. 4. Quon 202X simulated platooning. 5. UD’s version of ‘mirror cam’ 1

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TRANSPORTING EVERY HAPPINESS

At once cryptic and utopian, which often amounts to the same thing .

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CREATE WITH YOU

Buses as well as trucks on show.

1. Isuzu Giga with new high cab roof incorporates full suite of safety features including adaptive cruise, control, blind spot monitoring and pre-crash braking system. 2. Isuzu FL 1-R concept vehicle which dominates the surrounding stand like a giant robot from a Japanese Sci-Fi movie.

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1. Hybrids are no longer limited to fourtonners. The Hino Profia Hybrid is based on the Hino 700 Series and went on sale to the Japanese public in August. Great if you have some happiness to move around. 2. Hino’s Dakkar winning race truck always gets attention. 3. Hino Delivery concept vehicle uses pods and a wheeled drone to make that final metre delivery. 4. Hino FlatFormer modular electric vehicle. platform features six-wheel drive and can be fitted with a vast array of cab and body components.

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CHALLENGE THE CHANGES

Definitely, the most modest of the exhibits. Apparently, they had a trick light duty 4x4 in the outdoor exhibition but there was no mention of it on the stand (at least not in English).

1. Premiere of Fuso Super Great (Shogun in Australia) with level 2 autonomy 2. Fuso F-CELL based on Canter with fuel cell and electric drive technology.

HELP I S O N T H E WAY

THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES PROVIDES MOBILE SERVICES FOR COMMUNITIES IN RURAL AREAS AND OFTEN ASSISTS PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN AFFECTED BY NATURAL DISASTER OR ECONOMIC HARDSHIPS. IN RECENT TIMES, IT HAS PARTNERED WITH SG FLEET TO ENSURE ITS UNIQUE SERVICE IS FIT-FOR-PURPOSE AND ALWAYS AT THE READY.

Created in response to drought in 2006, the Mobile Service Centres now offer services for Centrelink, Medicare and Child Support as well as information about Department of Veteran Affairs programs to regional and rural communities. The vehicles now offer similar services to those found in any urban service centre, including private interview rooms, service desks, social workers and online access to myGov accounts. As the first government departme nt to achieve national TruckSafe accreditation, it has evolved in recent years. This evolution, according to Colin Hall, Director of the Department of Human Services Mobile Servicing Team, has been facilitated by three key factors: the increasing technology on board the trucks; improving connectivity around the country; and the widespread use of social media. “We tailor services to community needs,” Colin says. “That means doing a lot of work in advance of the next visit in order to work out what the community’s needs are.” Each Isuzu FX vehicle boasts wireless IT connectivity and is allocated two service officers, a manager and driver to help with whatever human services is required. “We used to go to a lot of places that didn’t have Telstra connectivity,” Hall says. “That was quite limited. The advent of social media has enabled more people to be aware of what services we provide, alerting them that we are coming to town.” The Human Services Mobile Services team works closely with mobility solutions provider, SG Fleet, on the design of each vehicle to exploit its maximum height and length as space inside the mobile centre is at a premium. Expanding capsules are employed to increase floor and head space so the interior flows appropriately while taking into account egress access issues. SG Fleet helps triangulate the design process

between the body builder and Human Services Mobile Services team. It’s an interactive process, according to Colin, in which engagement well in advance of the design phase is crucial. “Through the build, you always find new innovations, new ideas and issues to troubleshoot. In that way it’s really about the three parties working together to keep finding new ways and solutions that arise throughout that whole build process,” he says. “It’s all about engagement, so when there are challenges all three parties can deal with it together. SG Fleet’s role is really to facilitate that process and make it happen.” The vehicles deployed by Human Services have changed shape over the years. They originally started with Winnebago campervans before upscaling to DAF prime movers. At present they have found that a heavy rigid vehicle, at its maximum height and maximum length, is ideal for the access and requirements of the moment,