When one of Australia's biggest transport and logistics companies Scott's Refrigerated Logistics collapsed last month, supply chains across the country were disrupted.
The collapse has exacerbated the struggle some small regional businesses have long faced to get their products to larger distribution centres in capital cities.
From a warehouse in Townsville, Casey Bowie and her sister run a frozen meal production company using beef from their family's cattle property near Hughenden.
The tightening of freight availability has left the business, Black Rock Beef Co, without a way to distribute their product.
"We just got an order, put the booking form in, and got told that they can no longer support small businesses, which is fair enough, everyone's got to run a business, but it put us in a pretty tricky spot," Ms Bowie said.
Despite rising production costs, the sisters were ready to expand to the southern states.
"It's really disheartening, it's really frustrating," Ms Bowie said.
"We're really trying to make a go of it here, trying to grow, trying to expand, and the one thing standing in our way is a truck with a freezer on the back."
The business is at a standstill as the Black Rock Beef Co director scrambles to find a solution.
"I went on a wild goose chase," Ms Bowie said.
"I called about 50 different places ranging from Darwin to Melbourne to try and find a cold frozen truck to get onto, but had no success."
'Systemic issues'
According to the Australian Logistics Council, small regional businesses across the country are struggling to move their products to key capital city distribution centres because of labour shortages.
"The real source of the problem is a lack of truck drivers," council chief executive Hermione Parson said.
"These are systemic issues — this is not one company being picked on or being treated badly."
The workforce pressure the freight and logistics industry is under has seen many trucks left driverless.
"In some remote areas there have … been very sad stories — there have been some really good transport companies for a long time, but they've just given up," Dr Parson said.
"The trucks are there, they just can't get the drivers."
'Heart and soul'
As Ms Bowie looks to find a solution to get her products to Brisbane, store owners are waiting for their products.
Market Organics chief executive Samantha Gelderblom, who owns and operates eight produce stores in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast, says regional suppliers are being "left behind".
"Our customers are extremely passionate about local [produce] and farmers, so if we didn't support them I think there would be an uproar in our customer base," she said.
"It's heartbreaking for these guys put their heart and soul into all these companies and they're just getting left behind with these freight issues.
"These big companies are just looking after the city people and the people that have the money, as that's more cost effective for them, which I totally understand.
"But we do need to have some sort of system that helps support regional suppliers."
Amidst her struggle to find a freight company to send her product south to Brisbane, Ms Bowie said the business may consider diversifying its market to be closer to home.
"We were kind of going through everything and found that some of our best sales are in Airlie Beach, Hughenden, and Charters Towers," she said.
"These are smaller, regional and rural places that probably don't have as many options in the freezer aisle, and we thought maybe there's an opportunity there."
