Bulk bags shipped to Colorado

Who fills bulk bags in Colorado

Plains feedlots and the Front Range

Colorado splits into three bag markets. The eastern plains grow wheat, corn and cattle. The Front Range, from Fort Collins through Denver to Colorado Springs and Pueblo, holds most of the people, plants and warehouses. West of the divide, the mountains and the Western Slope around Grand Junction are reached over long grades.

Every quote starts with which of those three the bags are going to, because it decides the truck and the route as much as the bag.

Cattle feedlots line the South Platte valley around Greeley and out toward Fort Morgan and Sterling. They take feed ingredients and mineral premix in bulk bags, and northern Colorado's sugar beet processing leaves pulp and by-products used as feed.

Feed minerals don't need a food-grade bag. A duffle top and a spout bottom over the mixer is the usual setup, and an inspected 6:1 bag can be reused for minerals if the feedlot agrees.

Drilling, cement and dense powders

Oil and gas drilling in the basin north of Denver uses bentonite, barite and cement, and builders across the Front Range use cement, mortar and sand. These products are heavy for their size.

Barite is dense enough that a bag filled to 3,000 lb sits low. Order the SWL first, then the height to match the product's weight per cubic foot. At 5:1, a 3,000 lb SWL bag is tested to 3,000 x 5 = 15,000 lb once. Cement and bentonite need coated fabric and a liner to stay dry.

Front Range builders also use sand and gravel dug from pits along the South Platte and crushed granite and limestone from quarries in the foothills. Ready-mix plants and landscapers take some of that by the bulk bag for small jobs.

The Piceance Basin on the Western Slope has natural gas drilling of its own, supplied out of Grand Junction, Rifle and Parachute along I-70. Those crews use the same dense additives, delivered over the mountains or up from Utah.

Malt, barley and the San Luis Valley

The San Luis Valley in the south grows barley for malting, and Colorado's brewers, from Denver to Fort Collins, take malt in bulk bags. Malt is food. It goes in new, food-grade bags with a spout bottom that feeds a mill hopper.

A brewery with a small dock usually takes bags by LTL. Tell us the hopper inlet size so the discharge spout fits.

Breweries also use rice hulls in the mash to keep the grain bed loose during lautering, and some take specialty malts and flaked grains by the bag. Each needs a dry, sealed bag; malt that takes on humidity can grow mold and spoil a batch.

Metro Denver's food plants, from tortilla and bakery lines to snack and pet-food makers, take flour, masa, sugar and grain by the bulk bag. All of it is food or feed for pets and goes in new bags, often with a liner and a spout bottom over a sifter.

Potatoes, peaches and Western Slope farms

The San Luis Valley is a high, flat basin ringed by mountains, and alongside barley it grows potatoes that are stored in cellars through winter. Potato growers buy fertilizer by the bag in spring and seed treatments in smaller lots; the valley is reached on US-285 and US-160, well off any interstate.

On the Western Slope, Palisade near Grand Junction is known for peaches and wine grapes, and the Uncompahgre Valley around Olathe and Montrose for sweet corn. Orchard and vegetable growers there take compost, gypsum and nitrogen in bulk bags. Down the Arkansas River, around Rocky Ford, melons and onions grow under ditch irrigation.

These drops are long hauls from Denver over mountain grades, so a partial load is often cheaper riding with other freight. We'll ask how many bags you need for the whole season, not just the first fill, and plan the trucks around it.

The northeastern plains around Yuma, Wray, Burlington and Akron grow dryland wheat, corn and proso millet, a small grain sold for birdseed and food. Millet is a fine, slippery seed that flows like water, so a spout bottom with a tie and a petal closure keeps it from running out early.

Crossing the Rockies, and booking

I-70 runs from Kansas through Denver, then climbs to the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel and over Vail Pass to Grand Junction. Winter chain laws for commercial trucks can hold freight on that stretch. I-25 runs north and south along the Front Range, and I-76 leaves Denver northeast toward Nebraska. There's no seaport; bagged freight comes by truck or into rail yards around Denver.

For a quote, send product, SWL, top, bottom, liner and ZIP. To book empties, send a count and a bale photo; 5:1 bags go to recycling.

Southbound on I-25, Monument Hill between Denver and Colorado Springs is the first place snow piles up, and Raton Pass on the New Mexico line is the next. Mountain towns along I-70, from Idaho Springs to Glenwood Springs, have tight streets and few docks, so drops there often need a smaller truck.