The transport of glucose is a product in our catalogue that a priori is not associated with the transport of a food liquid; probably due to its viscosity or its specific industrial use, but the use of this sweetener by the food industry has made its implementation in our fleet a success.

The transport of liquid glucose in tanker trucks requires special care due to the characteristics of the product and the conditions necessary to maintain its quality and safety. Liquid glucose, being a sweet and highly hygroscopic solution, is susceptible to changes in its chemical composition if not handled properly. Therefore, tank trucks must be designed with materials that do not react with the substance, such as stainless steel or specific plastics that prevent contamination.

The loading and unloading of liquid glucose into a road tanker must be carried out carefully and according to specific procedures to ensure the safety of the product, personnel and the environment. The following are some of the most important precautions to be taken:

Cleaning and disinfection of the truck.

Before loading liquid glucose, the road tanker must be completely clean and free of contaminants. This is especially important if the vehicle has previously transported other products, to avoid unwanted chemical reactions or crosscontamination.

It is very important to remember also that vehicles intended for the transport of liquids for foodstuffs may not transport liquids not intended for human consumption.

Temperature check

Liquid glucose for transport must be within the appropriate temperature range, which shall be between 15°C and 25°C. If the temperature is higher or lower, it may affect the quality of the product and make loading or unloading more difficult.

Inspection of valves and connections

Before loading or unloading, we check that all valves, hoses and connections are in good condition. The hoses are corrosion resistant and are specifically designed to handle food liquids of this type.

Use of personal protective equipment (PPE)

As in any other industrial activity, personnel involved in loading and unloading are provided with adequate protective equipment in compliance with the regulations on risk prevention.

Spill prevention

Before loading or unloading glucose, we check that the connections are tight and that the pumping equipment is working properly. This minimises the riskof spillage, loss of material and unnecessary time.

Pressure control

Maintaining the proper pressure inside the tanker during the process is key. Pressure must be monitored to avoid accidents or malfunctioning of valves and hoses.

Traceability and documentation

The entire loading and unloading process is recorded, ensuring product traceability. This includes verifying the exact quantities, temperature and other important parameters, as well as having documentation to certify that the procedure has been carried out correctly.

During the transport of liquid glucose

It is crucial that it is carried out under controlled temperature conditions. Liquid glucose is sensitive to heat and may suffer alterations in viscosity or quality. It is generally transported at temperatures between 15°C and 25°C, to avoid alteration of its properties. At temperatures above 30°C, liquid glucose may start to become more viscous, which makes it difficult to handle and may affect its quality. In
addition, excessive temperatures can cause partial caramelisation of the glucose, which changes its composition and makes it unsuitable for use in food or industrial applications.

Rios Sangiao's tankers are adequately insulated so that temperature variations do not exceed 2° in adverse external conditions such as heat waves or cold on long journeys of several days.

For all these reasons, liquid glucose manufacturers have in Rios Sangiao an ally to take their products to their customers with all the guarantees of quality preservation.

On our website we have plenty of information about the qualities and service we provide for the transport of olive oil, of which Spain is the world's leading producer, exceeding one million three hundred thousand tonnes per year. However, the truth is that for some time now, most probably influenced by the rise in olive oil prices, sunflower oil has closed the gap in sales and consequently this change in consumption has also been felt in transport.

In the sunflower oil scenario, we are left with just under half a million tonnes per year, with Ukraine as the world's largest producer. However, as we said before, the movement of sunflower oil experienced a very notable growth during 2024 due to the rise in prices following the poor olive harvest.

The care to be taken into account when transporting sunflower oil is quite similar to that of olive oil, as it is an oil for food use, in which we must avoid certain scenarios such as oxidation of the product, which undergoes chemical changes on contact with air that could cause deterioration in its quality. In this way, we load, transport and unload the oil, minimising its exposure to air and at a low temperature so that its resistance to oxidation is greater. It is also important throughout the process to avoid exposure and contact with metals such as copper or iron, which would also increase the oxidation process.

The stable maintenance of the temperature and the complete cleaning and drying of the tanks are essential to avoid processes such as hydrolysis (decomposition of fats into fatty acids) or the proliferation of microorganisms.

All the washing tasks carried out before and after each load guarantee the absence of cross-contamination and at Rios Sangiao we keep a record of the cleaning carried out in each tank, its location and its certification.

In our stainless steel isothermal tanks exclusively for food products, the transport of sunflower oil is carried out maintaining the quality of the product that enters the tank until it is unloaded.

We have landed in 2025 and we already have all our tanks on the road after the Christmas break during which we have been doing so many things that we really shouldn't call it a break.

First of all, we have taken advantage of the fact that many of our trucks were at home to carry out more exhaustive maintenance and overhauls than usual so that they could start the new year in perfect condition. We have also gathered them together and we have done a photo session to show you part of our fleet, our new isothermal tanks reinforced with new temperature measurement systems and IR homologation.

And these photos are in addition to the second and no less important part of our news, which is nothing more and nothing less than our brand new website. We are delighted with this new version, more complete in the description of all the services we can offer you, with a blog in which we tell you our news and adapted to mobile devices. This redesign is a clear step forward in modernising and facilitating our corporate communication.

With all this we continue to move forward in the modernisation of our company in all areas (marketing, management, media, traffic, quality...) that results in the best service and an optimal experience for our customers from the first contact with us.

You can see that after the draw we are still here 🤩. And the truth is that we see as difficult that any draw will make us stop doing what we at Rios Sangiao have been doing for three generations.

We feel fortunate to be able to dedicate ourselves to the same thing that our grandparents and parents dedicated themselves to and that we are passionate about today. And obviously none of this would be possible if our customers were not there, placing their trust in our work every day.

So, taking advantage of these Christmas 🎄and New Year's Eve dates🎆, we would like to congratulate all the teams we work with, the people who collaborate with us, those who make up Rios Sangiao and of course all our customers.

Happy Holidays and Happy 2025 🌟.

We are about to end the year and at this time it is time to take stock of what 2024 has meant for Rios Sangiao and for the transport of liquid foodstuffs in general.

This year has seen a reduction in the alcohol rate for transport professionals and for our part we have reduced it to zero by not allowing our drivers to consume alcohol during working hours.

We have seen the first hydrogen trucks, still in testing, from Daimler and Toyota, which we believe can be the real alternative to fossil fuels. And this brings us to another missed milestone of 2024 which is the electrification of fleets and the very poor geographic spread of electric charging points for trucks that has yet to get off the ground.

The sector has been in turmoil this year, with strikes on several occasions, and is still hovering over our heads with early retirements looming.

The shortage of professional drivers has been a constant in 2024, which looks set to continue in the coming year and brings value to companies that are committed to retaining talent with committed people.

Finally and on a positive note, the market trend in the road transport sector is positive and is expected to grow by 0.4% in the coming years.

The new Internal Market Information System (IMI) platform has been mandatory for posted drivers since Wednesday, February 2. Who is legislating this application? Which companies are obliged to use it? What are the characteristics of this system? Keep reading, because in this post we tell you all about it!

Legislation of the new IMI platform

Previously, transport companies making international trips from Spain had to register with the national platforms of each European country.

With the implementation of the Mobility Package approved in July 2020, this registration is now managed by the European Commission. As of February 2, each company will have to register in the IMI European Platform and complete all the data related to each trip. All previous national registers will also be repealed as of this date.

Which companies will have to use the new IMI platform?

Companies performing transport services in European countries and holding an EU license will be obliged to use the new platform. The obligation is independent of the country of origin, whether it is a Member State or a European Economic Area country, and whether or not it has transposed the European Parliament's Directive 1057/2020 on the posting of drivers. From May, it will also be mandatory for companies with vehicles weighing 2.5 tons or more.

In total, the 33,000 Spanish companies that carry out international transport will start using the new IMI platform. In this way, they will no longer have to register their trips on the national platforms of most European countries.

What is the IMI platform like?

The new registration platform is multilingual and intuitive. In addition, they will be able to receive requests for documents, electronically, from the control authorities of the countries, in case of possible inspections.

The movement declarations registered from the application can have a duration of up to 6 months and can be modified, cancelled or renewed. Each driver must have a copy, physical or digital, of this declaration, together with the supporting document for the transport in question and the corresponding tachograph records. It is possible to print the declarations from the platform or send them by e-mail to the driver.

In the registration of each trip, the company must enter in the application the data related to:

• The transport authorization
• The vehicle
• The driver
• The start and end dates of the trip
• The transport manager's data

What are the implications of the new registration system?

This new way of controlling international transports, together with the new cabotage rules, affects letterbox companies and competition from offshore companies with more advantageous wage conditions. Thanks to the new legislation, these drivers will be paid the minimum wage of the countries in which they carry out each transport. Transit and bilateral transports are excluded.

Thanks to the mandatory registration of each transport on the IMI platform, the control of the activity is more effective than with the previous national platforms imposed in countries such as Germany or France.

Now that we have done this review of the main aspects of the IMI platform, we can establish that its objectives (along with the other measures of the EU Mobility Package) are to improve the European transport market. By means of:

• Fairer and more harmonized rules in the social, labour and fiscal fields.
• The reduction of the distortions that until now occurred among the competition.

It’s well known that every food liquids transport company, including us, makes a huge amount of kilometres. The transport of milk, juices, wines, water or even the transport of glucose offers a big quantity of fields to work on and business opportunities in a very productive territory with that type of food liquids.

For you to have an idea of the quantity of the services that we cover: if we sum the kilometres that make each day every single one of our trucks, we could go around the Earth covering its 44.000kms of circumference. Only in one day!

Our fleet of more that 80 trucks works every day around Europe and that translates as a huge distance travelled each day.

And now thinking in galactic distances, only one of our tanks would take only two years to reach the moon. At the time when there is a road to the moon there we go! (because it’s not going to be an isothermal tank…).

Inside the complexity of the food liquids transport, there are some liquids that at the same time need even more specific conditions than others, and that increases the complexity, that’s the case of the milk.

The white liquid means a big part of the total of litres transported by Ríos Sangiao through the year, this is because of the geography situation: a region with large grassland and a huge milk production of the best quality.

To prevent losing that quality on the way, we first have to keep the cold chain established between 6º and 8º Celsius, so there isn’t a lot of space for variation. In our milk collections, we use tank extraction systems that make the milk go directly from one tank to another without any contact with the exterior nor manipulation.

The transport of raw milk since the livestock farming to the correspondent plant is the most delicate moment for the milk, since it hasn’t been pasteurized and the correct care in this phase is critic. In this part of the process, the milk is stored in the plant for later processing and packaging, although we sometimes offer a temporary storage service for food liquids in isothermal tanks.

Once applied the pasteurization process, the temperature is not so crucial and it can vary more, but in our tanks the variation of temperature in adverse conditions (intense exterior heat), doesn’t go further that 2º Celsius, with this data we can assure that the milk goes out with the same quality it entered.

The abandonment of fossil fuels is something that all of us who work in transport have in mind because every day the need to reduce the carbon footprint of our activity becomes more evidente, and in this paradigm shift we need the involvement of companies and administrations.

The reality (today) in the scenario of electrification of road transport

However, it is a change of stage and paradigm in which we need the involvement of several actors: in one hand, public administrations, facilitating and simplifying investments in new infrastructures and encouraging the renewal of the transport fleet, and on the other hand, energy and transport companies, which must do their part and take the change as an investment.

Compliance with regulations and standards

In practice, all these developments are extremely complex and costly, so that today the electrification of transport is not yet viable due to the scarcity of suitable recharging points for industrial vehicles, which must have a power output of more than 350kW. Only 1.2% of the points reach this power, as indicated in the magazine ‘Ruta del transporte’. In addition, the location and environment of many of these points are focused on recharging cars, making it impossible to park a truck.

Although new charging points are being installed, we are at a very low quota for the target of ensuring that by the end of 2025, 15% of the TEN-T road network will have public access charging stations for heavy electric vehicles in each direction of traffic and that each charging station will offer an available power of at least 1,400 kW and include at least one charging point with an individual available power of at least 350 kW’.

The fundamental objective of Rios Sangiao is to offer the best transport and storage services to meet the main needs of our customers. This is possible thanks to the constant effort to study and analyse the requirements of the parties involved in order to define all the risks and opportunities that exist in the working environment.

Integration and motivation of the staff

At Ríos Sangiao we want our employees to carry out their work with total involvement in the daily tasks and in achieving all the objectives set.

In this sense, the company manager must encourage activities and actions that strengthen the sense of togetherness among employees by setting common objectives that can be measured and achieved. This will be possible through informative talks and meetings about the company and future projects.

Continuous training

It is important to set as an essential purpose the continuous training of Rios Sangiao's employees by means of the realisation and subsequent approval of an annual training plan. In addition to a detailed study of the training needs of the employees.

In the end, training is crucial for any employee to feel fulfilled and motivated.

Customer orientation

Ríos Sangiao's staff is fully aware that fulfilling the wishes and expectations of customers is at the centre of all the projects and activities we carry out.

Commitment to service

At Rios Sangiao we ensure that the services we provide to our customers meet the specified (legal and regulatory) requirements. Meeting these requirements is the ultimate goal of the service.

Quality of work

The quality of work is achieved mainly through the effective detection of defects and the taking of the necessary measures to mitigate the consequences of these defects and thus avoid their repetition. In addition to the definition of actions and programmes aimed at preventing non-conformities.

The company's management wants the staff to collaborate and participate actively in the maintenance of the Integrated Management System, as it is an effort that benefits everyone.

As you can see, our quality policy is fundamental when carrying out the actions and tasks proposed as a company. The training of Ríos Sangiao's employees is key to achieving motivation in daily work. This motivation facilitates cohesion among employees, which fosters an improvement in customer satisfaction orientation, service commitment and quality of work.

To find out more about the situation in the transport market and our business, you can take a look at our latest posts on trends in the logistics sector, truck loading and unloading operations and truck maintenance recommendations.