SOUTHERN Queensland’s Strasburg Livestock Transport is a third-generation stock transport business that’s operated for almost 51 years.

Authur Strasburg started the business with a couple of trucks in the late 1950s, before his sons Ray and Lester took over around 1974. Lester’s daughter Claire now runs the business, with the help of long-time employees Sam Collins (workshop manager) and Peter Heck (logistics manager).

The fleet currently numbers ten Kenworth prime movers, but is growing to 12 trucks within the next couple of months, following two recent deliveries waiting to be fitted out.

Strasburgs appeared on Beef Central’s original Top 25 Stock Transporters feature back in 2013 in position number 20, with 15 prime movers and one-time uplift capacity of 47 decks. The departure of a large regular customer soon afterwards saw some reduction in fleet size for a period, before expanding again to today’s larger numbers.

Based out of a depot in Marburg in the outer Ipswich region, most of Strasburg’s carting business is centred on Central and Western Queensland, both paddock and saleyards uplifts of young cattle heading to backgrounding, feedlot or saleyard, and cattle out of the paddock or feedlot to the abattoir.

“It’s very diverse these days – we used to do mostly saleyards cattle heading to feedlots or properties, but business is probably 50-50 now,” Claire said.

Strasburg does regular contract loads for large clients like Weiambilla feedlot near Condamine, supplying JBS and supermarket contracts, also servicing JBS abattoirs weekly from local sales, as well as spot business for a wide ranging clientele, both corporate and private family-scale cattle producers. Most of their clients have been with them for well over 35 years.

Diversification into stock crates and trailers

A unique feature of the business is an offshoot started in 1990s, buildings their own crates with chassis supplied from the likes of Haulmark, O’Phee and Brazier. This then led to Lester deciding to build stock crates from the ground up in 2004.

“Building our own stock crates allows us to turn over our trailers quickly, keeping the age of the trailers down meaning they are always in good condition. This also means that they have a few spare trailers sitting around, so if someone rings up with a job, even during busy times, we have the gear to do it,” Claire said.

So what motivated Lester Strasburg to diversify into trailer manufacture 21 years ago?

“Dad wasn’t happy with what was available on the market, or the way they were built. He and the boiler makers spoke with our drivers regarding design regarding simplicity and ease of use and went from there. If the drivers recommend options that will make loading/unloading safer or more efficient, we will try and implement their suggestions” Claire said.

While transport itself remains the company’s main focus, Strasburg continues to manufacture trailers for outside clients in its Marburg fabrication shop to this day.

Along with all other transport operators featuring on this list in coming days, access to good drivers and the rising costs across the board remain a key challenges for the Strasburg transport business.

Booking inquiries: 0419 790 320 email: accounts@strasburgs.com.au

Click here to return to Top 25 Transporters feature, or click here to return to the table of Top 25 entries.