J.M SMUCKER LLC-Ripon - Fairburn, Georgia

Blue A.

⭐☆☆☆☆ (If I could give negative stars, I would.)

DO NOT COME HERE unless you enjoy wasting your entire day. This place is a complete disaster—zero efficiency, terrible management, and no respect for drivers’ time.

I arrived an hour early only to be told to park and wait for my appointment time. Still had to sit in a 30-minute line because they only have ONE person running both the in and out lanes at the guard shack. Once I finally got to my dock, I had to ask other truckers to leave space because the exit line was so long it was blocking docks—a clear sign that no one here knows how to run a facility properly.

Now, here I am, over 7 hours and 30 minutes later, STILL waiting. At the three-hour mark, they told me my load was 97% picked but only 78% loaded—what kind of nonsense is that? Pure incompetence.

And don’t even think about canceling. They make it sound like a long, complicated process where the broker has to talk to management, who has to talk to the customer, just to get a return number. But the second you actually cancel, they’ll have you unloaded in 30 minutes. So they COULD be fast if they wanted to—but instead, they choose to waste drivers’ time.

If you’re unfortunate enough to come here and need to cancel, go to the door in the middle of the handicap spots near the entrance.

This place is now on my permanent DO NOT RETURN list. Avoid at all costs unless you enjoy being trapped at a dock for an entire day. This is one of the worst-run facilities I’ve ever been to.

Marchelle S.

Excellent backhaul. I had a drop and hook. Easy checkin and checkout. Plenty of room to back into pads and docks. Staff was very friendly especially the lady in the guardhouse, Ms. Troy. They have a nice drivers break room. I was in and out in 35 minutes considering other drivers were in line also.

Person A.

3.5 hours to live load. Could be worse but could be a lot better. They’re Putting way too much responsibility on the guard for check in & out makes the process painfully slow. Won’t be coming back.

Quentenius

Large, modern facility with adequate room to manuever. The entrance for Bldg A is SW corner. The gate guard was pleasant and had a sense of humor. They honored my 5am appointment and unloaded a full trailer in about 2 hours. I was only here for a delivery from Minnesota, so maybe people have more problems with outbound loads?

Update 9.1.23 Returned with exact same load. Arrived early and was told I would have to wait until my appointment time 5 hours later. Not great, but the schedule isn't on them. Came back and waited in line 20 minutes before my appointment. Gave guard the paperwork, trailer and truck number. She asked if I had a license and I said, "I do," took it out and tossed it a few inches under the low glass onto the shelf. What came next was completely unexpected given my previous experience here. "Did you just throw that at me?" "No. But I did just toss it onto the shelf there. I didn't mean anything by it." Well, I'm not a baseball player."
At this point it was clear that she just wanted to kick down at someone. Anyhow, amazing how your experience can differ from one visit to the next depending on who you come into contact with.

Lyght

It was a really pain in the butt, my dispatcher kept swearing the pickup number was a 204 number and the really nice lady at the guard shack said it was a 428 hour. It took an hour going back and forth before someone else ended up in the guard shack. I didn't catch his name but he was able to use a 217 pickup number. That headache aside everything was great. Plenty of room to move around, everyone I talked to was super nice. Due to the pickup number issues I was an hour late before getting a dock door, 666 very fitting after the pickup number issue. So loading time could have been a little faster but I'm assuming they did me as a work in so all n all it wasn't super long of a wait.

MizYazzy K.

Guard told me that even though the load was 80% done, I still couldn't stay that I had to wait until they called. It's 5 am, the next morning, and there was no call or HOS on my clock. Only got the answering machine. They got to do better.

Bernes T.

Make sure you know where you’re going.. they have 3 separate buildings under the same address!
Once docked I was loaded in 35 mins but waiting at the gate to exit took almost an hour … they need to do better were trying to get going!!!

OLEKSII K. (.

2 times they gave a wrong dock. No toilets! Where am I suppose to do my business? Horrible place!