FIELD SERVICES — WHOLESALE GREENHOUSE

Bonnie Plants processes paperwork 10x faster with Connected Maintenance

The nation's largest herb and vegetable plant producer digitizes driver compliance, monitors greenhouse temperatures in real time, and sees significant cost saving opportunities with Samsara.

Powered by the Samsara Connected Operations Platform

Meet Bonnie Plants

~970 TRUCKS

49 STATES SERVED

100+ YEARS IN OPERATION

The Challenge

A growing fleet outpaced by paper, point solutions, and limited visibility

Bonnie Plants has been growing and distributing plants across America since 1918. As the nation's largest producer of vegetable and herb plants, the company operates in 49 states, supplying major retailers like Walmart, The Home Depot, Lowe's, Costco, Menards, Tractor Supply, and Kroger. With a fleet of nearly 970 trucks and a growing workforce of seasonal and temporary foreign national drivers, managing compliance, safety, and logistics was complex.

Before Samsara, Bonnie Plants relied on a legacy ELD provider and manual processes to manage their fleet. Compliance documents, driver qualification packets, and maintenance records all lived in outdated digital storage. Routing was not available with the previous provider and the previous navigation solution offered limited functionality, and a scarce number of licenses shared across the fleet. And with hundreds of greenhouses at their Alabama home base subject to sudden overnight temperature drops, growers had to closely monitor every greenhouse to protect their associates and plants.

"We didn't know what we were missing before. With Samsara, everything unlocked instantly. We still get excited to uncover and apply new features every day."

Jamie Padgett

Fleet Compliance Manager, Bonnie Plants

The Solution

One platform to connect the fleet, the field, and the greenhouse

Bonnie Plants started with basic trailer tracking, but quickly expanded to connect every aspect of their operations. Growing and transporting living plants requires an airtight chain-of-custody and precise coordination from their greenhouses to customer stores. To take control, Bonnie Plants rolled out Connected Maintenance, AI Dash Cams, Routing and Navigation, Asset Tag, Environmental Monitors, and Qualification Management. Where Bonnie Plants once juggled file cabinets, paper logs, and spreadsheets, they now manage their entire operation from a single Samsara platform, accessible from any phone or laptop. "We appreciate the old; we've been around since 1918, but we embrace the new," said Padgett. "We have to have new technology, or we'll get left behind."

Connected Maintenance

Processing paperwork 10x faster with AI-powered invoice upload

By replacing manual data entry with Samsara's AI invoice upload, Bonnie Plants accelerated their maintenance processing speed by 10x, freeing up maintenance staff to focus on turning wrenches. "You upload a document, and Samsara Intelligence reads the information and puts it all in the right spots for you. It's incredibly fast," said Jamie Padgett, Fleet Compliance Manager. This transition from reactive to proactive fleet management provided granular visibility into vehicle repair costs, directly justifying the strategic purchase of 80 new trucks this season.

Cameras and video

Building a safety-first culture with Samsara Positive Recognition

By leveraging Samsara's AI Dash Cams to shift from a reactive safety approach to a positive recognition loop, Bonnie Plants achieved reduction in a crash event and dropped their ISS score from 64 to 25. A core driver of this safety ROI is Samsara Positive Recognition. When dash cams capture a driver practicing safe habits or showcasing exemplary skills, their manager can send a personalized note to has positive recognize and compliment that individual. "Our ultimate goal at the end of every day is to get everyone home safely. Everyone, Everywhere, Everyday." said Padgett. "And now that we can send drivers little messages with Samsara Positive Recognition, we can give them the support needed to guide them there."

Routing and Navigation

Saving station managers 90 minutes per day with digital routing and navigation tools

By transitioning from manual spreadsheets to Samsara's automated Route Planning, Bonnie Plants saves their station managers roughly 90 minutes per day on route building. Those optimized routes then flow directly to drivers through the Samsara Driver App, where Commercial Navigation solved a different challenge. With turn-by-turn audio directions, drivers can navigate their stops confidently, without needing to punch in a single address.

Asset Tag

Preventing $1.2 million in annual equipment loss with Samsara Asset Tag

Before Samsara, carts often sat outside stores for hours waiting for a merchandiser who did not realize the shipment had arrived, resulting in dead plants and lost revenue. By deploying Samsara Asset Tags across their fleet of rolling plant racks, Bonnie Plants gained real-time visibility into their retail supply chain and mitigated costly theft. Geofences would trigger alerts when carts with Asset Tags arrived so Bonnie Plants could notify merchandisers of a delivery. Carts were also frequent targets of theft with 5-10% of their cart fleet lost to theft. By equipping carts with Samsara Asset Tags, the company can now track real-time locations and recover stolen carts. Bonnie Plants expects to see a significant decrease in loss of carts from their inventory with the use of Asset Tag.

Environmental Monitor

Preventing catastrophic crop loss and protecting workers with Samsara Environmental Monitors

By installing Samsara Environmental Monitors inside their agricultural greenhouses, Bonnie Plants eliminated manual overnight temperature checks and protected millions of vulnerable seedlings from freezing. This unique application of environmental monitoring not only prevents devastating revenue loss from heater failures during winter but also ensures regulatory compliance for worker heat safety during summer.

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