By TIM UNRUH

Salina Journal

While scratching their heads over fuel prices, business owners are using their brains to get products to consumers, focusing on efficiency and getting the most return for every loaded mile traveled.

Demand for beer and energy drinks is high, said Boone Vidricksen, owner of Vidricksen Distributing, 1825 Bailey, the Anheuser Busch wholesaler for Salina and a five-county area.

The company distributes about 80 brands of Budweiser, imported and microbrewery beer and Monster Energy drinks, in more than 200 different packages.

"We're looking at it every day, trying to figure out how we're going to overcome these problems," Vidricksen said.

On Monday, he took delivery on a fuel-efficient Chevrolet wagon that will visit retailers ahead of the big diesel-guzzling trucks that haul products to stores from Dorrance to Chapman and Lincoln to Herington.

"We've been forced into presale visits," Vidricksen said.

Instead of a truck loaded with inventory doing "peddle sales," a salesman will go out the day before to write orders and introduce new products. The move is an effort to send trucks to retailers loaded with what they want.

"Instead of shipping back 20 to 100 cases, the guy's out with an economy-size vehicle. We'll write more accurate orders," he said. "It was becoming an everyday problem to follow behind the truck and fill orders."

The change is necessary for the company, which normally adjusts its transportation costs every spring. With fuel at all-time high prices and climbing, it's hard to predict how those costs will change, Vidricksen said.

"These wagons will get two-and-a-half times the mileage of the trucks," Vidricksen said.

Surcharges a major factor

Fuel surcharges are a major factor at Doug Bradley Trucking, 680 E. Water Well, where products are hauled all over the country from terminals in Salina, Marshall, Minn. and Walton, Ky.

But the surcharge, an extra charge added to shipping, is only covering about 90 percent of the added cost of fuel, company owner Doug Bradley said.

"The fuel prices are so high that it's hard to make ends meet," he said.

With diesel fuel price well above $4 nationally -- $4.12 Tuesday in Salina -- the company is charging 61 cents a mile over its normal freight rate.

But some shippers are able to negotiate that surcharge down and don't pay the total cost, Bradley said. Moreover, the 61 cents is for loaded miles. There is no surcharge for empty, or "deadhead," miles.

"If we run a load from (Salina) to Minneapolis, (Minn.) drop it off and deadhead back to Marshall, that's 150 miles that we're not getting paid a surcharge," he said.

Truckers adjust their regular shipping rates according to destinations. For example, Bradley said, a load to Phoenix might cost more because it's harder to get a load to bring back. Chicago is considered a "good area," because there are more freight opportunities coming back.

The toughest of times

In his 35 years in the business, Bradley said, "This is by far the toughest time we've ever seen in trucking."

The fuel price has been a huge issue since about 2004.

"We're cutting all the corners we can," he said.

After Hurricane Katrina caused fuel to skyrocket in the fall of 2005, the company began using auxiliary power units to heat and cool truck cabs while they're parked. Idling truck engines will burn four to five times more fuel than an auxiliary unit, he said.

About two months ago, Doug Bradley Trucking adjusted the governors on its truck engines to lower the top speed from 73 to 70 mph.

"Some of the changes we've made over the last six months have increased fuel mileage by almost half a mile a gallon," Bradley said. "I'm sure everybody is doing everything they can to make things as efficient as possible."

n Reporter Tim Unruh can be reached at 822-1419 or by e-mail at tunruh@salina.com.