For contractors and entrepreneurs interested in producing or supplying concrete without investing in a traditional permanent batch plant.
What if you could produce concrete for your projects or customers without investing in a traditional permanent batch plant?
For contractors and entrepreneurs looking to take more control of their concrete supply, producing concrete independently can open up new possibilities. You may want to reduce your reliance on scheduled deliveries, serve customers who only need small quantities, or introduce concrete as another service your business offers.
But getting started doesn’t necessarily mean purchasing property, constructing a permanent facility, or investing in a large-scale concrete operation.
At Cart-Away Concrete Systems, we’ve spent more than 35 years developing equipment that gives businesses different ways to produce, transport, and deliver concrete. From portable mixing trailers to compact batching systems, our equipment allows businesses to establish concrete production around their actual needs without making a traditional permanent plant the starting point.
Concrete Production Doesn’t Have to Start With a Plant
When people think about producing concrete commercially, they often picture a large facility with cement silos, aggregate storage, ready-mix trucks, and a steady stream of concrete leaving the property. That type of operation serves an important purpose, particularly when producing high volumes of concrete. But not every business needs that level of infrastructure.
Consider a contractor who regularly needs concrete for foundations, equipment pads, sidewalks, or other smaller projects. The work may be spread across different locations, and the amount of concrete needed can change from one job to the next. Now consider an entrepreneur interested in selling concrete to local contractors, landscapers, homeowners, or other customers who don’t always need a full ready-mix truck. Both businesses have a reason to work with concrete, but neither necessarily needs the production capacity of a permanent commercial batch plant.
Portable mixers and compact batching equipment make smaller-scale concrete operations possible, allowing businesses to choose equipment based on how much concrete they need, where they’ll use it, and how they plan to supply it.
Produce Concrete Where It Makes Sense for Your Business
One of the biggest advantages of portable concrete equipment is the flexibility to choose where and how concrete is mixed. For some contractors, that means mixing concrete directly at a jobsite. For others, it means loading a mixer at a central location and transporting it to nearby projects or customers.
Our MixKing portable concrete mixing trailers provide one way to accomplish this. Materials can be loaded into the trailer, transported to the point of use, and mixed when the concrete is needed. This approach can be especially useful for businesses handling smaller concrete projects where scheduling a traditional ready-mix delivery may not be the most convenient option.
A contractor working on several jobs throughout the week can use a portable mixer to handle concrete needs without depending entirely on outside deliveries. A business selling smaller quantities of concrete can use the same type of equipment to give customers a convenient way to transport concrete. Because the equipment is portable, the mixing operation doesn’t have to be tied to one permanent production facility.
Portable mixing gives your business another option when traditional concrete deliveries aren’t the best fit.
You Don’t Have to Produce Every Batch Yourself
Owning a portable concrete mixer doesn’t mean you need to invest in all the equipment required to batch concrete from scratch.
For contractors or entrepreneurs who aren’t ready to purchase a loading system or establish their own production location, getting concrete from an existing ready-mix plant can be another practical option.
Instead of storing and batching all the materials yourself, you can take your portable mixing trailer to a ready-mix plant that offers trailer loading, have it loaded with concrete, and transport it to your jobsite or customer.
This gives businesses a way to use portable concrete equipment without immediately investing in cement storage, aggregate hoppers, conveyors, or an automated batching system. It’s especially worth considering for contractors who only need concrete occasionally or businesses that want to begin offering smaller quantities of concrete before investing in their own production equipment.
Not sure where to get your trailer loaded? Our Cart-Away Concrete Trailer Locator can help you find participating concrete locations near you. Contact a location to confirm its trailer-loading services and availability.
Whether you plan to load your trailer at an existing plant or establish your own batching operation, you can choose an approach that makes sense for your business.
More Than One Way to Set Up Your Concrete Operation
The equipment you need depends on where you’ll mix concrete, how you’ll load it, and how much you plan to produce.
Some operations benefit from a trailer that can be loaded and taken directly to a project. Others need a mixer that can be positioned at a jobsite or a loading system that helps prepare materials for multiple loads throughout the day.
At Cart-Away, we manufacture several types of equipment that can serve these different needs.
Portable Mixing Trailers
Our MixKing trailers are a practical option for businesses that want to mix and transport smaller quantities of concrete.
They can support contractors producing concrete for their own work or entrepreneurs establishing a short-load concrete service.
A business can operate a single trailer for occasional projects or use multiple trailers to serve different customers and jobsites.
Skid-Mounted Concrete Mixers
Not every concrete operation needs a towable mixer.
Our skid-mounted concrete mixers provide another option for contractors who want concrete production capability at a jobsite or designated working location.
These mixers can be incorporated into operations where a trailer-based setup isn’t the preferred arrangement, giving businesses a way to produce concrete without building a permanent batch plant.
Portable Loading and Batching Equipment
For businesses that want to prepare their own concrete materials, loading equipment can make the process more organized and efficient. Our LoadPro and PortaBatch systems offer different levels of material handling and batching capability.
The LoadPro features a 2-cubic-yard aggregate hopper, a built-in cement bag breaker, a conveyor system for loading materials into portable concrete mixers, and a digital water meter to help measure water during the loading process.
For businesses looking for more automated batching capabilities, the PortaBatch includes an 11,000-pound cement silo, a 6-cubic-yard sand and gravel hopper, and our TouchBatch operating system. It is designed to dispense a one-cubic-yard batch approximately every two minutes.
These systems can support businesses that want to load their own mixers rather than relying on an outside concrete supplier for every load.
What Could a Concrete Business Look Like Without a Permanent Plant?
Portable concrete equipment can support different types of businesses, depending on how they plan to use or sell concrete.
A Contractor Handling Concrete for Multiple Jobsites
A contractor completing sidewalks, equipment pads, repairs, and other smaller projects could use a MixKing trailer to transport and mix concrete where it’s needed. Depending on the project and local availability, the trailer could be loaded at a participating ready-mix plant or with the contractor’s own loading equipment.
For businesses working across multiple locations, this provides another way to organize concrete production around the work being performed rather than scheduling every project around a ready-mix delivery.
An Entrepreneur Starting a Short-Load Concrete Service
An entrepreneur could establish a business serving homeowners, landscapers, and smaller contractors who need concrete in quantities that don’t justify a full ready-mix truck. Portable mixing trailers provide a way to transport concrete to customers or allow customers to haul concrete themselves, depending on the business model.
This type of operation could focus on customers who need concrete for smaller projects, such as walkways, patios, repairs, and landscaping work.
An Existing Business Adding Concrete as Another Service
A rental yard or building-supply business may already serve customers who regularly need concrete. Adding portable mixing trailers could allow the business to introduce concrete alongside its existing products and services.
For operations that want to prepare concrete at their own location, loading equipment such as the LoadPro or PortaBatch can help support that process. These examples show how concrete production can fit into different business models without requiring every operation to begin with a permanent batch plant.
When Does More Automated Batching Make Sense?
As daily concrete volume increases, the loading process becomes just as important as the mixing equipment.
If your business is loading multiple trailers throughout the day, manually measuring and transferring materials can become a time-consuming part of production. Having a dedicated loading or batching system can help streamline that process.
For businesses that want more control over their own material supply and loading operations, our PortaBatch and CBL dry-mix belt loading systems offer different levels of production capability.
For operations considering more advanced automated production, the U-Cart UCBL2 offers another option. This batching system incorporates load-cell weighing for consistent material proportioning, two aggregate hoppers with 10 cubic yards of combined storage, cement delivery augers, integrated conveyors, and a 500-gallon water buffer tank.
The decision to invest in automated batching equipment depends on how much concrete you need to produce, how frequently you’re loading mixers, and whether managing your own material supply makes sense for your operation.
A permanent plant isn’t necessarily the next step when production demand increases. The right loading and batching equipment may provide the capacity your business needs.
Is Portable Concrete Production the Right Fit?
A permanent batch plant may be the right investment for an operation with consistently high production requirements and the infrastructure to support them. But many contractors and entrepreneurs have different needs.
They may have a steady demand for smaller quantities of concrete, an opportunity to serve a local market, or an existing business that could benefit from having its own concrete equipment.
Before investing in equipment, consider a few important questions:
- How much concrete will you need? Estimate the quantities you’ll use or sell and how frequently you’ll need to produce them.
- Where will the concrete be used? Determine whether you’ll primarily work from one location or supply multiple jobsites.
- How will your mixers be loaded? Consider whether an existing ready-mix plant can supply your trailers or whether you’ll need your own loading equipment.
- What space and resources are available? Think about equipment storage, material supply, utilities, transportation, and any applicable local requirements.
Your expected concrete volume, available space, and loading options should guide your equipment decisions. The right setup is one that supports the work you plan to do without requiring more infrastructure than your operation needs.
Build Your Concrete Capability Without Building a Permanent Plant
At Cart-Away Concrete Systems, we believe businesses should have options when it comes to producing and supplying concrete.
A contractor looking to handle concrete for its own jobs has different requirements than an entrepreneur preparing to sell concrete to local customers. An established operation producing multiple loads every day has different needs than a business entering the market for the first time. That’s why we manufacture equipment for a range of concrete applications.
From MixKing portable mixing trailers and skid-mounted mixers to LoadPro loading equipment and automated batching systems, we provide options for businesses that want concrete production capability without making a traditional permanent plant their only path forward.
Interested in producing your own concrete without investing in a permanent batch plant? Explore our portable mixers, loading equipment, and batching systems, or contact Cart-Away Concrete Systems to discuss the right equipment for your business.
