Case Studies

Few people know that the Pokémon game cards are printed and packaged in South Dakota — where we have operations. Still fewer know that, just two years after the games hit the US market in 1996, T-Brothers Logistics would become Pokémon’s shipping partner of choice — a relationship that continues today, more than 20 later. Why has Pokemon stuck with us?

It’s obvious that a logistics company would make a fuss about a large retail client with a name everyone knows. But the value of an endorsement from a demanding client rep working behind the scenes isn’t always as clear. Put the two together and you have high-caliber challenges few carriers can pass: a customer with a reputation to protect and professional ambitions that demand an elite partner.

Although the company is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, all four of its assembly plants are in South Dakota, hundreds of miles away. With parts coming into the country through the Twin Cities, the company has some unique shipping challenges.

“The creativity that has been on display with what we do with them — it’s hard to put it into words,” says Nik Finley of T-Brothers. “Every month — could be 10 – 20 trailer loads of product— we deliver to their common carrier providers. We give them that can-do attitude on expediting that process when there’s no other provider that would do that.”

With customers spread across the entire farm belt, this Ag Supplier depends on T-Brothers for van service to small but high-value clients across the entire farm belt. T-Bros carries full vans of 55-gallon drums to this constellation of small co-operatives for loading bulk fuel oil for delivery to rural customers spread literally over millions of square miles.

Those businesses rely on timely delivery because their own customers, always operating on razor-thin margins, incur big costs getting those drums loaded, filled, and delivered to farmers and others in their service area. That's why we're their go-to carrier.

Isn't it time for a more secure route with your freight? Find out why so many customers and drivers have stuck with us for so many years. Click and get started.