Transporting cases, crates, kegs and additional point-of-sale items from warehouses and trucks into retailers often is a physically demanding task. Thankfully for delivery personnel, suppliers remain dedicated to developing hand trucks and carts to help ease the heavy burden of beverage delivery. With the products providing the bulk of the weight, hand truck and cart manufacturers focus on lightweight, sturdy innovations that also are rugged and reliable.
“We continue to see a desire for safe, ergonomic hand trucks,” says Andrea Horner, marketing manager for Magline Inc., Standish, Mich. “One of the biggest considerations remains weight. Most injuries don’t happen from one-time occurrences; they happen from repetitive movements over time like lifting a hand truck on and off a truck multiple times per day. Empirical evidence tells us that once a driver sustains a job-related back injury, the chance of reoccurrence within a two-year time period is 50 percent.”