TRUCK SPOTTING

Tarps destined to become unique bags have to bring some color into our lives. Which is more difficult than it sounds because our tarps don't just roll off the shelf. We can’t simply order colors: we need to get out there and search for them.

Blue tarps are a bit like blue jeans for trucks and are therefore pretty common. That, by the way, is the reason why you can almost always find this combination in the F-stores. But colors you hardly ever find on trucks – like black or pink – are highly coveted.

But we aren’t the only company on the lookout for tarps. There are plenty of other buyers out there, and success depends on striking precisely when the best tarps come to the end of their lives on trucks. In other words, our truck spotters spend a lot of time researching, scouring truck magazines and newsletters, visiting trade shows and cultivating contacts with suppliers.

They’re often on the phone telling the FREITAG story to transport companies, tarp manufacturers and vehicle dealers. And if they’re convincing enough, the latter, too, become new tarp suppliers and are happy to contact us when they want to get rid of another load.

Incidentally, truck spotters have an occupational disease of their own: they’re constantly on the lookout for particularly beautiful specimens. Whether in the passenger seat or at a rest stop, they always have their cellphone cameras at the ready in case a rare tarp crosses their path.

Upcycling used truck tarps, i.e., reprocessing waste from another industry, is beneficial from a resource consumption standpoint. However, this usually means we can only conclusively assess the quality of used truck tarps after their delivery.

As a result, tarps that are too brittle or damaged by fungus, for example, or tarps from direct suppliers that contain substances unsuitable for making bags and accessories, can only be separated out on site.

To ensure the safety of our products, we check our PVC tarpaulins for undesirable constituents, such as various plasticizers (phthalates) and heavy metals, while our laboratory partner, SQTS (Swiss Quality Testing Services), tests them for unwanted plasticizers. In our production facility at Zurich headquarters, we use X-ray fluorescence (XRF) equipment to identify heavy metal content (e.g. lead).

As our agents supply by far the largest proportion of tarps (over 85%), they are directly involved in the testing process to ensure that they only deliver suitable tarps to Zurich. For this purpose, they send us test samples of the tarpaulins in advance, which we can evaluate in the laboratory in a few days. Direct suppliers, on the other hand, deliver their tarps without prior testing.