Last year Rob decided that since
we’re in the smoking business we should sell wood pellets. I did my homework
and settled on a company in the Ukraine. This was long before Russia decided to
try and take over Ukraine. To make a long story short we ended up buying 39,000
pounds of wood pellets and shipped them to Miami.
By the time we got the pellets to
the US they were about $7 a bag and the going price was about $20 for a twenty
pound bag but about the same time our wood pellets arrived the price of wood pellets
dropped dramatically and now you can buy a thirty pound bag on sale for $10. To
make matters worse Rob and Zach were managing the wood pellet business on
Amazon and they had our pellets listed at $30 a bag. Needless to say, I haven’t
sold many wood pellets but all the while I’m paying $500 a month to store them.
I finally decided to drop Amazon and
move the pellets closer to home. If nothing else I’m saving $300 a month
storage fees but I can also use them in my testing and maybe start selling them
on line. They are premium pellets so I can sell them at a higher price but
within reason.
I rented two pallet jacks and
luckily Ben was able to help me, but the biggest blessing of all is that the
driver of the truck had an electric pallet jack and was very helpful. He backed
his 18 wheeler into the narrow driveway and spent the next four hours helping
us unload eighteen pallets of wood pellets and haul them to the other side of
the facility.
Ben stayed longer than he probably
should have but finally had to leave but by that time we had most of the
pallets in the storage unit and then Kira called. Ben had helped finish the
heavy lifting but we had three pallets that wouldn’t fit so we decided to stack
individual bags on top of the other bags. Since there are 105 bags per pallet
Kira and I moved 315 bags of wood pellets. I had loaded the last bag into the
storage unit, walked out into the driveway and it started pouring rain.
Let me tell you what a miracle that
was. The pellet on the right is a good healthy pellet ready to burn. The pellet
on the left is one that has been wet.
Can you imagine a pallet full of wet
wood pellets? That would be 2,000 pounds of saw dust. Sure the pellets are in
plastic bags but those bags are porous to prevent condensation from forming in
the bag.
I am so glad that the Lord saw fit
to hold back the rain until Kira and I got the pellets under cover.
So Kira and I were just finishing up
the last of the bags when the manager of the storage units comes up to us and
mentions that we are not allowed to store wood pellets in the storage units. I
thought he must have been joking.
He had been watching us all morning
and decided to tell us now? I was dumb founded and I asked him why? He says
that they are flammable. I pointed out that half the storage units are filled
with wooden furniture and I’d even seen one full of cans of paint. He then said
that they attract pests. I responded that pests would be just as happy living
in an old couch.
I finally realized that I’m arguing
with the wrong guy and asked for a number of his manager. He said he couldn’t
give me his number but assured me that he would call me. He finally did and we
have it all straightened out now.
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