The grocery store…..one of life’s necessary evils. I used to stop by every day to pick up whatever I needed to make dinner. Then my wife and I started making a list and I was only going once a week or so. I did not look forward to those trips. Spending hours trying to maneuver a misaligned cart that wants to drift right, all while it gets heavier and heavier with each item. Not to mention the impulse buys….candy aisle = a few extra pounds in the cart. Luckily our grocery store now shops for me. All I have to do is swing by and pick it up. They even put it in the car!
The problem with only going once a week is that we are buying a lot more groceries at one time. While the workers at the store load my car up, they don’t follow me home to unload. I’m stuck with taking them from my car to my house…and then trying to get it all to fit. We are big milk drinkers at my house, so there are several gallons and half-gallon jugs since my son is still drinking whole milk (and a lot of it). To minimize my effort, I make as little amounts of trips to the car as possible. Trying to carry all the milk at once wreaks havoc on my arms……not to mention juice, lemonade, wine, beer, or other drinks we happened to buy.
Finally, all the groceries are in the house. Time to put it all away. The milk all needs to go in the refrigerator…plus all the other drinks because I’m more of a “drink it cold” person and not a “put ice in it” person. As I’m sure most of you know, it’s difficult to get everything to fit into the refrigerator. My Tetris skills are challenged almost every time.
Thankfully we are able to save a little space and weight on certain items. The juice people will sell you frozen cans of concentrate. Fantastic! Now I have a light, small container that I can easily stow away until I’m ready to use it. My arms and my Tetris skills salute you, juice people.
What other items have reduced or eliminated water to make transportation and storage a lot easier? Laundry detergent Pepto-Bismol, weed killer…the list goes on and on because it just makes sense. Removing water makes the product lighter, which makes it easier (and cheaper!) to ship. Water also takes up space, so these products don’t take up nearly as much room.
The same idea applies to water treatment chemicals. APTech Group manufactures solid blended concentrates, which have minimal water in them. That means shipping can be done via UPS, you can carry the product in your hand, and take up less real estate to keep inventory on-site.
-Written by David Naylor, Engineering Manager at APTech Group
