Sugar beet harvest: two Arocs in continuous use

Six to seven runs a day.

Thomas preferred to go out on his own and founded a new company: Forestier 3G, whereby 3G stands for “third generation”. “When we're not busy with the sugar beet harvest, we do a lot of work for our family's own construction company, whose construction sites we deliver to. However, I have now also managed to get the contract for the quarry at Bolonnais,” says Thomas. There, there is a huge gravel and sand quarry from where he transports breakwater stones to Calais where they are required for extending the port. This assures one of the two dumper trucks six or seven runs a day. “The contract is for more than three years,” says the young entrepreneur happily.

Thomas has already secured return freight to Boulogne-sur-Mer. At the port he can stock up sand and gravel waiting for shipment. In the autumn and winter he is under contract for Tereos Sucre France, a sugar factory. During the five-month long beet harvest, his trucks transport beets which the red sugar beet harvester has removed from the ground to the Tereos factory in Attin, a village close to Le Touquet with a population of 700. There, the vehicles drive over weighing scales and unload the beets on to an open space where the dumper trucks stage a true dance. The volume to be transported is so great that Thomas's dumper trucks have to run shifts. “We start every morning between 3 a.m. and 3.30 a.m. I take over the second shift at 1 p.m. The factory is open until 11 p.m.”