Here’s hoping each of you are able to spend Christmas with those closest to you. What a gift to be able to love and be loved.
When the folks are opening a Christmas gift this year, it most likely was delivered to your city or town by truck.
The DOT reports trucks moved 73.7 percent of the country’s freight in 2012, carrying $10 trillion worth of the country’s $13.6 trillion in freight.
The figuress come from the DOT’s recently released Commodity Flow Survey, which is done about every five years.
Trucks also carried 70 percent of the tonnage moved in 2012, hauling 8 billion of the 11.7 billion tons shipped last year.
The for-hire trucking industry carried $6.6 trillion in freight — 48.5 percent of the total — the CFS says, while private trucks hauled 25.2 percent, or $3.4 trillion.
Trucks were slightly edged by rail, though, in ton-miles last year, as rail moved 44.5 percent and trucking moved 38.1 percent. Ton-miles is a measurement of weight multiplied by distance shipped.
Over half of the total tonnage moved in 2012 went less than 50 miles, while shipments traveling fewer than 250 miles accounted for more than 60 percent.
The CFS is only conducted every five years, with the first coming in 1993, and the subsequent ones coming in 1997, 2002, 2007 and last year. Final data from the survey will be released in December 2014.
Meanwhile, consumers show remember that whether it is the Christms tree at the home, the toys under that tree, or the furniture, or produce and other food in the refrigerator, chances are it came by truck.
To HaulProduce.com subcribers, sponsors and others who visit this website, this is wishing you the best Christmas ever! God Bless.
— Bill Martin
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Construction of a new wholesale produce market in San Antonio is scheduled to start in late December by Abasto Properties LLC of Mcllen, TX.
The project will be built in at least three phases, including a total of 200 warehouses. The first phase, consisting of 60 warehouses, should be finished by the end of 2014 or early in 2015.
The 80-acre site near the corner of Loop 410 and I-37 in south San Antonio will be about 3½ hours from McAllen.
San Antonio was selected because it can serve a large local and regional market that includes Houston, Austin, Dallas and San Marcos.
The market will feature mostly of small- and medium-sized warehouses operated by Mexican exporters desiring a presence in the market.
The facility will mostly handle imported Mexican product, but also will include some U.S. product destined for south of the border.
Among the San Antonio wholesale produce market features are:
- All warehouse units are 3,100 square feet with an additional 900-square-foot mezzanine for offices;
- All warehouses will be refrigerated;
- Each cold room can hold up to 156 pallets — about seven truckloads;
- Temperature in the loading areas will be controlled to ensure cold chain continuity;
- Each warehouse features a 450 square-foot covered dock;
- The project will feature extra-wide streets for easy truck maneuvering; and
- Each warehouse will have plenty of vehicle parking in front plus ample general parking for visitors and trucks.
San Antonio will differ from McAllen, which ships nearly all of its product out of state, in that about half of its product will be distributed locally or regionally.
Some of the tenants will be McAllen firms that are expanding their operations, while others will have their sole location in San Antonio.
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After several delays, the Autopista Durango-Mazatlan highway, a 143-mile road from the growing regions of west Mexico to Texas ports of entry, now is expected to open sometime during the first half of 2014.
If you haul produce out of South Texas, this is significant.
It is open, but there are still sections of the road that are not 100 percent complete.
The route’s 1,280-foot-high Baluarte Bridge already has been completed. It is the highest bridge in North America and the highest cable-stayed bridge in the world, according to the website highestbridges.com.
There is no need for trucks to travel up and down the mountain, because they bridges allows the 18 wheelers to go through the mountain.
The highway between Durango and the coastal city of Mazatlan has 61 tunnels and seven bridges that exceed 300 feet in height.
Nearly two-thirds of the produce Texas ships to the rest of the country comes from Mexico.
That only will increase when the new road opens, allowing Mexican growers to easily move product from growing areas in west Mexico to the eastern part of the country in an efficient manner.
Historically it has been impossible to do this because of the mountain ranges. However, the new road system flattens out the trip and making it entirely feasible for big rigs.
The shortcut should allow Mexican shippers and U.S. importers to save $2,000 when they ship a load east of the Rockies through Texas rather than Arizona or California.
Besides importing Mexican product, shippers may bring in Asian products shipped to deep water ports in west Mexico. This would allow importers to avoid Southern California’s Long Beach-Los Angeles harbor area, which is expensive and frustrating.
Completion of the road could boost south Texas to become the business port of entry for produce. Traditionally, Nogales, Ariz., has held the number one spot.
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When it seems the U.S. has fewer friends on the world stage, one exception continues to be the South American country of Chile. The United States enjoys a symbiotic relationship with Chile. The country ranks sixth among Florida’s top product export destinations, with over $3.9 billion in exports in 2011. Florida exports to Chile increased at a rate of 24.3 percent through October 2012.
The U.S. received 74 percent of total Chilean citrus exports in 2012.
And once that Chilean fruit arrives at an American port, you can bet it takes a truck to get it to the final destination.
Also in 2012, the U.S. imported fresh blueberries valued at nearly $419.8 million, a 12 percent increase from the previous year. Just over 50 percent of those fresh blueberries originated in Chile, which provides fresh blueberries to U.S. markets during the period of mid-November through January.
Canada shares a high demand for Chilean fruit with the U.S. According to a press release issued by Chilean Fresh Fruit Association in May 2013, Loblaws, a leading Canadian supermarket chain, increased its use of Chilean fruit by more than 20 percent during an import promotional period earlier in the year. Loblaws serves more than 14 million shoppers a week. It also has over a thousand stores across the entire Canadian territory.
There is also another issue to consider when thinking about the future relationship between the U.S. and Chile and other South American and Central American countries. Geographically they may be closer than other nations, like those of Asia or Europe, but fresh produce moves quickly today.
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Restaurants and other foodservice entities should be carrying more fresh fruits and vegetables on menus. Why? Because consumers want it.
About 4,000 consumers nationwide were surveyed and 600 foodservice operators were contacted by Datassential in May and June and conclude that ‘produce’ is now a hot food item. Foodservice operators are getting the message and plan to roll out more produce on menus soon.
Foodservice operators, or ‘operators’ for short, include away-from-home food establishments, including restaurants, universities, hospitals, lodging, catering, and others.
“The survey data says about 80 percent of consumers want restaurants to feature more produce on the menu,” said Maeve Webster, senior director of Datassential, Chicago, Ill..
“This is a fundamental shift in what (foods) consumers will eat away from home. It’s not just a fad.”
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I have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. There is my beautiful family, not the least of which is our newest member, my first grandchild, Sawyer, born on November 1st. I am thankful to live in this great country. I’m thankful for my health. I could go on and on, but right now I want to focus on the trucking industry, why I am thankful for it, and in particular the small fleet owners and owner operators.
When folks think of the truck industry, they often relate to the large fleet operations. There are 2.7 million Class 8 trucks registered in the U.S. However of the 500,000 registered trucking companies, 97.2 percent are operations with 20 trucks or less.
HaulProduce.com focuses on the transportation of our nation’s fresh fruits and vegetables — produce haulers. While produce is a small segment of the overall trucking industry, it is so vital in providing healthy foods, on a timely basis to receivers across North America, who supply consumers.
Of that 97.2 percent of trucking companies previously mentioned, 90 percent have five trucks or less. In other words the owner operators and small fleet owners are the backbone of the distribution system in this great country!
While we tend to hear only of the delays at loading and unloading docks, the unfair claims, the excessive rules and regulations, every day thousands of loads are delivered on time and in good shape, without problems.
There is a need in a well rounded transportation system, not only for the medium and large truck lines, but the small fleets, owner operatiors – and yes truck brokers or third party logistics companies.
It is the small operations that provide the flexiblity, and service that is so vital in delivering perishable food products.
For this I am thankful. It is because of you I go to my local supermarket every week to find healthy, fresh food products.
God Bless. Wishing each of you a great Thanksgiving. — Bill Martin
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The 2012 pesticide residue report has been released by The California Department of Pesticide Regulation, showing the bulk of items tested had no detectable pesticide residues.
Of the 3,501 samples collected at farmers markets, wholesale and retail outlets, and distribution centers, 57.5 percent had no residues. The samples included both domestically grown and imported produce.
An additional 38.9 percent of samples were within the legal tolerance levels, and 2.7 percent had illegal residues of pesticides not approved for use on that commodity.
The pesticide residues that exceeded established tolerances were less than one percent.
In total, 98 percent of all California-grown produce sampled by the department had pesticide residues within the legal limits.
Most of the samples with illegal residues were from other countries and contained very low levels.
In 2012, scientists most frequently found illegal residues on yardlong beans, limes, tomatillos and chili peppers from Mexico; snow peas from Guatemala; ginger from China and the United States; and spinach from the United States.
The report comes about a week after Dr. Oz aired a segment on his television show about pesticide residues titled, What the Food Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know.
The show was “clearly designed to scare viewers and raise produce safety concerns,” according to a news release from the Watsonville, Calif.-based Alliance for Food and Farming.”
Oz and numerous other health experts have gone on record to encourage the public to consume more conventionally or organically grown produce to improve their health.
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Midwest retailer Meijer operates one of the largest all-clean diesel fleets in North America. As part of its ongoing green initiatives, the Grand Rapids, MI-based retailer’s fleet utilized innovative technology to improve fuel efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint by nearly 60 percent since it first began implementing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2010 near-zero emissions standards three years ago.
The Meijer fleet is comprised of 170 Freightliner Cascadia trucks that are equipped with new fuel-efficient, reduced-emissions engines. They feature selective catalytic reduction technology that treats nitrogen oxides emissions downstream in the exhaust so the engine can be tuned to run more efficiently and economically. SCR technology consists of an after-treatment catalyst system that allows engine exhaust to be treated with a non-hazardous fluid known as diesel exhaust fluid that reduces harmful nitrogen oxides into simple nitrogen and water.
“This is an extremely rewarding achievement that truly speaks to our commitment to the environment,” Rick Keyes, executive vice president of supply chain operations and manufacturing, said in a press release. “Not only are we integrating cutting-edge technology into our business, we’re also working under the philosophy that to be a good company, we must be a good neighbor.”
The Meijer fleet was one of the first in North America to implement the federal clean emissions standards that feature near-zero emissions technology, and today the retailer’s fleet of 170 big rigs meets or exceeds those stringent requirements.
As a result of that commitment, the Meijer fleet realized the following:
- 47 percent reduction in particulate matter
- 55 percent reduction in – or 525 U.S. tons of – nitrogen oxide
- 3 percent reduction in – or 9,300 U.S. tons of – carbon dioxide
- 5 percent increase in fuel economy, saving 105,570 gallons of fuel each year. In five years, that equals a savings of 527,850 gallons of fuel – or 52,785 barrels of oil.
According to David Hoover, director of outbound logistics, it takes 47 of the new 2010 compliant trucks to equal the same emissions as one of the older trucks they replaced.
“I’m very pleased to say that Meijer is able to cut that down and continue to be environmentally conscious,” Hoover said. “The impact is tremendous because the Meijer fleet makes deliveries to our stores 26 times each week.”
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The Maryland Wholesale Produce Market in Jessup, MD, which been open since the mid 1970s, is installing security cameras.
The project has been implemented since the market sees a need to understand and monitor regulations affecting both the produce and seafood industries. The security cameras are vital to providing food safety and security for the complex.
Hundreds of produce haulers deliver fruits and vegetables to the market weekly.
Additionally market officials are working with an engineering company for plans to bring the dock canopy up to the condition that will meet audit requirements.
Located on about 400 acares, it is home to some major companies, such as Sysco Food Services of Baltimore, T.A. Baltimore South, Merchants Terminal, BTS Distribution Centers, Terminal Corporation and the Maryland Wholesale Produce and Seafood Markets.
Giant Foods was previously a tenant on the market, but it moved its operation to another location last year, taking with it a significant portion of the 3,500 people who were employed at the market. Virtually every category of fruits, vegetables and seafood are processed, packaged and distributed through the Maryland Food Center into the Mid-Atlantic region. This requires thousands of refrigerated trucks each month delivering product to the market for distribution.
The market is operated by the Maryland Food Center Authority, which has a 12-member executive board that is appointed by the Governor of Maryland.
Last year, the market completed a $780,000 roof replacement project on both market buildings.
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Here’s four issues in the trucking industry to ponder – and you decide whether they are valid.
*The driver’s shortage is a hoax.
*One of the last concerns of large fleets is the well being of owner operators and small fleet owners.
*Regulations are killing the deregulated trucking industry.
*California produce rates have been lower in recent years and the reason may be different from what you think.
These four statements came to mind following a telephone interview with Kenny Lund, vice president of Allen Lund Co.
Is There a Driver’s Shortage?
When it comes to a driver’s shortage relating to fresh produce, Lund sees the only shortages being at shipping point and at the receiving end These involve short hauls from the field to packing houses and from receiver distribution centers to retail stores, restaurants, etc. But he doesn’t see a driver’s shortage with long haul produce transporation.
Lund concedes there may be a shortage of drivers with the larger trucking companies, stating, “if you have 300 trucks you have to come up with 300 drivers to fill them.” However, produce transportation is dominated by owner operators, who is the driver of his own truck. He doesn’t have to recruit other drivers.
Large Fleets Hurting Owner Operators?
“It seems the larger truck lines are doing everything they can to make it tougher on owner operators,” Lund states.
As examples, LaCanada, CA-based Lund points to big carrier support of everything counter to issues of importance to owner operators. He cites large fleet support of Electronic Onboard Recorders (EOBRs ) that will add costs, and support of California Resources Board (CARB) rules. Why?
Lund points out large carriers tend to rotate their fleets every five years and it is the owner operators who are buying their used trucks. This wouldn’t be so bad except the CARB rules require equipment such as reefer units not to be older than seven years.
“You have to retrofit it for a cost of anywhere from $8,000 to $20,000,” Lunds says. On the plus size, he adds the fleets are starting to realize the CARB rules are not only bad for owner operators, but for the whole trucking industry. Lund believes the damaging CARB rules are a much bigger threat to the industry than a driver’s shortage.
Growing Regulations
Perhaps the biggest threat to the survival of owner operators are the growing number of federal and state regulations.
“When you produce all these regulations on an one-horse operator, he doesn’t have the resources to comply with everything,” Lund states. “It’s really putting a strain on them.”
Why Have California Rates Been Lower?
Lund notes California produce rates have not been as high in recent years. At the same time he is noticing more truck shortages, but not in California.
“There’s just not as many trucks in California now. What has kept the rates down is there is not as much produce (being grown in California),” Lund contends.
It comes down to California’s intrusive regulations, etc. are also resulting in more produce growers shifting their operations to Mexico where the red tape and costs of operation are less. For example, similar to California, there is less produce being grown in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, yet more truck shortages are occurring there, as more Mexican grown fruits and vegetables are being shipped into South Texas.
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These issues are presented to you following a telephone interview with Kenny Lund. I have known Kenny’s father, the namesake of the company since shortly after his modest beginning in 1976 as a truck broker . Today, the company works with over 20,000 carriers, which are mostly owner operators. ALC arranges about 200,000 loads a year, with food items accounting for over 50 percent of the freight. Refrigerated loads make up about 40 to 45 percent of the loads.
While Allen Lund remains involved in the company, Kenny Lund has assumed a greater role in the continued growth and success of the operation. At the same time, the high ethical standards put in place by Allen nearly four decades ago, remain rooted in the company’s foundation. — Bill Martin
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