Maximizing Payload Capacity: How to Properly Load Refrigerated Trucks or Vans

Every trip counts when you’re managing a fleet. And maximizing the payload capacity of your refrigerated truck or van means fewer trips, better fuel efficiency, and a stronger bottom line. But increasing payload capacity is about more than just packing on as much product as possible. Payload capacity — the maximum weight your vehicle can safely carry — is about strategically loading your refrigerated delivery truck or van. After all, the goal is to ensure the safe delivery of your perishable items.

Getting Payload Capacity Right

Extra pounds of payload translates into more revenue per mile. If a vehicle can’t carry enough product to meet your delivery demands, you’ll spend more time, fuel, and labor making up the difference. The key to getting payload capacity right is twofold.

First, you need to understand your vehicle’s Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) and account for all onboard weight — fuel, drivers, liftgates, and refrigeration units. This will ensure you deliver your goods safely while remaining compliant. To determine your payload capacity, subtract your GVWR from your curb weight (the weight of the vehicle when it’s empty, excluding fuel).

The other half of getting payload capacity right is nailing down your loading and unloading strategy. The transition of loading and unloading goods plays a vital role in the supply chain process. Properly loading a delivery truck affects cargo delivery time and, ultimately, business profit. Efficient truck or van loading also helps secure the quality of goods during transportation and keeps drivers safe during loading operations.

Understanding proper loading techniques can also help you select the best vehicles for cargo transportation. For example, when viewing a refrigerated truck for sale, calculating the size of the truck against the collective weight of goods can help determine if it’s an appropriate vehicle model. To develop a sound loading/unloading strategy, you’ll want to consider two primary factors:

• Truck size: The collective weight determines the capacity of the delivery truck and what shipments require. Refer back to our payload calculation.
• The container (bottom of the truck): The container’s dimensions and weight determine the best lifting equipment for loading and unloading cargo.

Developing Your Loading Strategy

It’s easier to adopt proper loading techniques after determining the delivery vehicle’s weight against the dimensions of the container. Understanding how weight is distributed across the vehicle floor helps determine how much to load in each section and how to avoid uneven balance. Before we go into specifics about loading, it’s important to recognize how product differences matter when preparing a loading strategy.

Understanding Temperature Differences

Many different products must ship along the cold chain, including many fruits and vegetables that vary in how each species tolerates cold temperatures. It’s vital to keep them cool, but you must also avoid chilling or freezing the product.

Protecting Perishable Items From Chilling Injury

Chilling injury is a form of deterioration caused by exposure to too-cold but above-freezing temperatures. The threshold below which the product will be “too cold” is the product’s designated lowest safe temperature. These designations range from close to freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit or zero degrees Celsius) to as high as 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

For example, asparagus and cantaloupes can chill to around 35 degrees Fahrenheit, while tomatoes and bananas cannot chill below 55 degrees Fahrenheit without sustaining damage. Some produce can withstand being chilled below this point for a short time, but others — such as bananas — deteriorate quickly in the cold.

Protecting Perishable Items With Freezing Sensitivities

Just as some fruits and vegetables can rebound from chilling while others cannot, the responses of produce species to freezing vary. Generally, freezing damages produce by compromising the microscopic cell walls that make up the plant, which becomes apparent when the product thaws. It takes on a limp, mushy appearance and texture and is not fresh upon consumption. Some particularly at-risk produce are bananas, avocados, and lettuce, while kale, parsnips, and turnips are all less sensitive to freezing.

Knowing the Difference Between Respiring and Non-Respiring Products

A third difference between products you may ship is how they heat up. Respiring organic products, named according to their continued metabolic function after harvest, produce heat as a byproduct of their metabolic processes. This heat energy warms the innermost part of the product before proceeding outward. This is the opposite of non-respiring products, which only heat up from the outside in. To protect the respiring product, carefully regulate airflow.

3 Steps for Preparing Your Refrigerated Truck or Van Before Loading

Given these differences, you need to take care to prepare your truck or van for successful loading and transport before the product goes anywhere near the vehicle.

Step 1: Setting Up Temperature Monitoring

The first step to preparing your refrigerated truck or van for loading is to position thermometers so you can easily monitor cargo temperature. Three thermometers should allow for thorough coverage. At Emerald, we typically recommend placing one closest to the door, another in the middle, and your last in the rear. Be sure none touch the walls of your truck to preserve accuracy.

Step 2: Develop Reefer Cleaning Protocols

Next, focus on cleaning your refrigerated vehicle thoroughly. Cleanliness is key to preventing contamination and stopping bacterial growth. Regulations also mandate a minimum level of cleanliness. When working with meat, for example, even indirect contact with the interior requires subsequent cleaning.

Spraying your interior with heated, pressurized water, without accompanying chemical cleaning agents, removes residual substances without introducing chemical odors. Take special care to perform a deep clean after transporting an especially odorous product, such as fish. This prevents your following product, which may be sensitive to odor, from absorbing the smell.

Step 3: Precool Your Refrigerated Vehicle Before Loading

Finally, you want to precool your refrigerated van or truck before loading perishable goods. If you were to load your product and cool the interior afterward, you’d lose precious hours of cooling and risk damaging the product as its temperature drops. It’s crucial to prevent these temperature losses whenever possible.

To this end, precool your refrigerated vehicle near the carrying temperature when it arrives for loading. This prevents overtaxing your refrigeration system, which is a risk when cooling it to the proper temperature after exposure to extreme heat. Stabilizing your vehicle at a cool temperature is your first step, but you don’t need to cool it to the product’s required temperature yet.

In fact, don’t cool it to the point where water vapor condenses on the walls. If this occurs, you risk compromising product packaging. To prevent this, don’t precool to a temperature that’s too low, and don’t run the refrigeration equipment when loading product from an open dock.

4 Best Practices for Loading Your Product

Plan Your Loading Pattern

A well-planned loading pattern helps maintain consistent airflow and prevents hot or cold spots inside the truck. Techniques like pyramid stacking or offset loading reduce the amount of cargo that touches the walls, allowing air to circulate freely along the sides. If you’re loading a centralized stack, make sure it’s properly braced to prevent shifting and maintain airflow around the product, which brings us to our next point.

Pallet Loading

To limit the amount of product you lose due to transfer accidents, load using a rigid pallet structure. Corrugated fiberboard affords a supported structure that enables a smoother transfer from forklift to truck. To make your product more ‘pallet-able’, consider unitizing it, or assembling individual units into a larger, structured unit. This generally stabilizes your loading process.

Brace Your Product

Strapping and tie-downs are essential tools for securing cargo inside a delivery truck or van. Tie-downs help prevent products from moving or damaging one another and keep drivers and other shipping personnel safe during loading and unloading. Ensure drivers double-check straps and clips before traveling to confirm the cargo is securely fastened.

Optimize Insulation and Refrigeration Unit

High-quality refrigeration and insulation units are essential for maintaining the desired temperature. Investing in high-quality insulation materials can minimize temperature fluctuations, allowing your fleet to pack refrigerated vehicles more densely without risking product spoilage. Efficient refrigeration units can maintain optimal temperatures even when the vehicle is fully loaded, ensuring every inch of space is used efficiently without compromising the integrity of your items. Read our latest guide for more customization tips.

5 Tips for Maximizing Payload Capacity

Evenly Distribute Weight

When transporting packages of different weights, balance is everything. Unevenly distributed cargo can shift during transit, increasing the risk of damage or tipping — especially during turns or sudden stops. To keep your load stable, place heavier items on the bottom and toward the front of the vehicle. This helps protect lighter goods from crushing and reduces strain on the rear axle, which powers the truck’s movement. Proper weight distribution keeps your vehicle stable, your cargo secure, and your drivers safe.

Use Safe Cargo Packaging

Efficient delivery practices require safe cargo packaging to protect the quality of goods during the transportation process. Damaged goods impact business profits and disrupt the supply chain process. Consider the following tips to help ensure cargo remains undamaged until it reaches its destination.

• Arrange boxes in an interlocking pattern to avoid excess movement
• Load heavy items first to ensure adequate space to stack lighter items on top
• Be mindful of gaps between packages that require dunnage or fillers to keep cargo stable
• Maintain adjacent pallets at the same height inside the delivery truck to minimize the height differential between packages

Keep Family Products Together

The key to properly loading a refrigerated delivery vehicle is also knowing how to properly unload one. The starting point of any delivery process begins at the warehouse. An efficient way to reduce warehouse travel time is to load family products together at the same time and ship multiple pallets of the same product in a single shipment. It makes it easier to access and retrieve products during unloading.

To keep family products together, consider pre-kitting techniques. Pre-kitting involves organizing and packing products in a way that harmonizes with delivery routes and the order of product unloading. This method reduces the time spent at each delivery location and minimizes handling, helping preserve the quality of goods.

Additionally, pre-kitting can optimize space use by grouping like items to maximize payload capacity. This approach benefits businesses with multiple delivery stops, streamlining the loading process and increasing overall efficiency.

Consider Adjustable Shelving and Multi-Temperature Zones

Adjustable shelving is one of the simplest ways to get more usable space from your refrigerated truck or van. Customizable shelves let you make the most of vertical space, stacking items safely without blocking airflow — an essential factor for maintaining consistent temperatures.

For fleets that haul a variety of goods, pairing adjustable shelving with multi-temperature zones can further boost efficiency. By dividing the cargo area into separate, climate-controlled sections, you can carry products with different temperature requirements in a single trip. This approach reduces wasted space and minimizes the need for multiple deliveries, helping you move more product with the same vehicle.

Conduct Walk-Around Inspections

Before loading, conduct a walk-around inspection of the delivery truck or van to ensure it’s safe and ready for transport. Delivery drivers must visually check for unusual odors, noises, or physical defects in the vehicle or loading equipment. It’s also important to verify that each compartment of the delivery truck has adequate space for the incoming shipment.

Human error is one of the leading causes of improper loading of delivery trucks. The best way to maintain proper loading practices is through consistent training and reinforcement with all shipping personnel. Consider revisiting training on these essential operations that all delivery truck drivers should know.

• Safety protocols that meet OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) guidelines
• The various types of loading equipment (forklifts, dock doors, etc.) and how to use them
• How to efficiently use the warehouse management system for daily loading operations
• The best way to remove secured cargo safely and efficiently during the unloading process
• The fundamentals of ergonomic movements to prevent chronic or acute injury during the loading and unloading process

Bonus Tips for Best Loading Practices

• Ensure the loading area is firm, leveled, and clean before loading cargo
• Before parking at a loading station, use the brakes to stabilize the delivery truck
• When securing cargo in the delivery truck or van, be sure you’re using one tie-down for every 10 feet of cargo
• Never load unsecured cargo in the back seat or on the rear window deck of the delivery vehicle
• Use a tarp to protect smaller cargo and securely tie the tarp down with ropes or straps
• During transportation, be sure to routinely check the cargo for movement to avoid potential safety hazards during loading

Effective Load Management

Effective load management is vital for maximizing capacity. This involves carefully planning how goods are placed within the vehicle to ensure even weight distribution and stability. Using pallets and containers specifically designed for refrigerated vans and trucks can help you achieve this balance. In addition, using straps and load bars will help secure your items, preventing movement during transit and allowing for a tighter, more organized packing method.

When loading, limiting the time your reefer and product spend exposed to the open air helps maintain freshness. Follow a loading checklist. Ensure workers coordinate well with one another, know how much clearance to leave from interior walls, and generally prepare for the loading process beforehand. You won’t want to have to address confusion about loading when the product is ready to go in.

Investing in high-quality vehicles is a critical first step in the supply chain process. Emerald Transportation Solutions is your one-stop shop for all your delivery vehicle needs. Explore our broad selection of insulated trucks, vans, and reefers to optimize the transportation of your goods. If you have any questions about our product, contact us today.

Editor’s Note: This blog was originally published in June 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness in October 2025.