Trailers – ingenuity at work

Our new approach to cane even extends to the farm machinery we use to transport it from the farms to our distillery. Ollie, our “master of machines”, searched high and low to track down the right kind of trailer to meet our specific needs. Then, working in collaboration with the Scottish manufacturer Stewart Trailers, (who, incidentally, then went on to name this version of their trailer after CaneCo) adapted these trailers to match our specific harvesting and transportation needs.

Next, to get our custom-made trailers to Grenada at an economical cost, they were designed to fit into two 40 feet shipping containers. This required many of the components to be detachable and build to reattach once they reached their destination. Quite the feat!

The challenge

The four high-quality Stewart tipping trailers that we sourced from Scotland have a carrying capacity of up to seven tonnes of sugarcane. Once we have cut our sugarcane, the next step is to get the stems intact in one whole piece to the distillery with as little damage as possible. That’s easier said than done. Short of wrapping the cane in cotton-wool and helicoptering it to the distillery, Ollie jokes, it’s virtually impossible to transport the cane without any pressure on the stems. To solve this challenge, Ollie and the team have employed three ingenious adaptations that allow us to ‘cushion‘ the journey of our sugarcane across bumpy fields and roads, treating it like the precious cargo it is.

Ingenious adaptations

To begin with, the tipping trailers have transparent headboards that allow the driver to look into the trailer and direct the stacking of the sugarcane as it is being loaded. This means that the driver can ensure that the sugarcane is packed evenly and therefore less prone to damage in transit. Next, the trailers have a lowered centre of gravity, which makes them more stable on Grenada’s steep hills and sloping roads. Last but not least, the team have installed rocking beam axles that allow each wheel to lift independently, making it easier for our trailers to traverse uneven and difficult terrain out in the field. 

Resilience

Our trailers spend comparatively more time on the road and in the fields than would be ordinarily the case in a temperate climate with one fixed harvest season per year. Thanks to our tropical climate, we can harvest our fields pretty much at any time of the year as long as the sugarcane is mature enough. To withstand the wear and tear from its heavy usage, our harvesting equipment was made out of especially strong, durable and damage resistant Hardox steel. All of these clever adaptations we have made to our trailers increase the resilience of our machines and ensure that our cane arrives in tip-top condition at its final destination – the Renegade Rum Distillery – A New Approach to Cane.