Bulk bags shipped to Tennessee

Who fills bulk bags in Tennessee

Memphis, the river and the warehouses

Memphis sits on the bluffs above the Mississippi where I-40 and I-55 cross the river, and it grew into a major distribution town, with rail yards, barge terminals and warehouse districts spreading into north Mississippi and eastern Arkansas. A lot of bag freight for the mid-South passes through it.

The river harbor at Presidents Island handles barges of grain, fertilizer, steel and other bulk. Fertilizer that comes upriver by barge and is bagged for farm delivery starts its last leg here, and so do many of the empty bales headed for Delta farms on either bank.

West Tennessee beyond the city grows cotton, soybeans, corn and wheat on flat, loess-capped ground. Dealers in Jackson, Dyersburg, Union City and the towns between take seed bags before planting and fertilizer bags before planting and sidedress.

Memphis grew as a cotton market, and cotton still passes through its warehouses, but as pressed bales, not in FIBCs. The bag business around cotton is the planting seed and the fertilizer that grow it.

Ball clay in the west Tennessee hills

The hills of northwest Tennessee, along with the neighboring corner of Kentucky, hold ball clay: a fine, plastic clay that gives strength to ceramic bodies. It goes into sanitaryware, wall and floor tile, dinnerware and pottery.

Ball clay ships several ways. Some moves shredded in bulk; the dried, ground and air-floated grades go in bags. Those grades are fine, dusty and sensitive to contamination, so processors use new coated bags or a liner, sift-proof seams, a spout top for a closed fill and a spout bottom for a metered drop into a blunger or mixer.

Clay that picks up moisture in storage can cake. Keep filled bags under a roof, wrapped and off damp concrete, and rotate stock.

Grain to glass

Tennessee whiskey starts as corn, with rye or malted barley in the mash bill, and finishes with charcoal filtering before the barrel. Big distilleries take grain by the bulk truck or rail car. The small distilleries that have opened across middle and east Tennessee often take milled grain and malt in bulk bags, because they have no silo to fill.

Grain for a distillery is a food ingredient. It goes in new food-grade bags with a spout bottom that ties off cleanly over a mash tun or grain hopper, and a liner if the maltster or miller asks for one. We do not quote used bags for distillery grain.

Spent grain left after distilling goes to cattle feeders, usually wet and in bulk. If a feeder wants dried spent grain in bags, a coated bag with a wide spout keeps it moving.

• Milled corn, rye and malt: new food-grade bag, spout top and spout bottom
• Dried spent grain for feed: coated, duffle top, wide spout bottom
• Seed and fertilizer: new Type A for seed, coated duffle top for fertilizer

East Tennessee chemicals, zinc and resin

The Tri-Cities around Kingsport and Johnson City and the Chattanooga area have long been home to chemical, fiber and plastics plants, and the valleys of east and middle Tennessee have zinc mines. Between them they bag resins, pigments, cellulose products, additives and mineral concentrates.

For powders that can carry a charge, the static type comes from your site's hazardous-area assessment. Type B is for dry flammable powders where no flammable vapour or gas is present. Type C works only with its ground connected through filling and discharge. Type D dissipates charge without one. Check the relevant standard and the bag maker's documents before the first fill.

Mineral concentrate is dense. A bag sized for a 3,000 lb SWL of zinc concentrate will be short and squat, and the label's SWL is the limit even if there is room left at the top.

Knoxville sits in the Great Valley between the Cumberland Plateau and the Smokies, where marble and limestone have been quarried for building stone and lime. Crushed stone and agricultural lime from those quarries ride in heavy coated bags, and sound used multi-trip bags can carry stone after inspection.

Roads, rivers and the booking

I-40 runs the length of the state from Memphis through Jackson and Nashville to Knoxville and over the mountains toward Asheville. I-24 links Clarksville, Nashville and Chattanooga; I-65 crosses north-south through Nashville; I-75 climbs from Chattanooga to Knoxville and on into Kentucky; I-81 carries freight northeast from near Knoxville through the Tri-Cities into Virginia.

The Tennessee River runs from Knoxville down through Chattanooga and back north across the state toward Kentucky, and the Cumberland passes Nashville and Clarksville. Both carry barge traffic through locks and dams.

Chattanooga, where I-24 and I-75 meet and I-59 ends just to the southwest, is the natural split point for loads that also serve north Georgia and northeast Alabama.

For a quote, send the product, SWL, safety factor, top, bottom, loops, liner and the delivery ZIP. Nashville makes a good LTL split point for middle Tennessee. We book empties pickups statewide; tell us whether the bags held food, feed, chemicals or minerals so each lot goes the right way.