Archive For The “News” Category
When it comes to being proactive in working for improvements in the trucking industry, by speaking out and pushing for improved, if not fewer regulations, Jimmy DeMatteis certainly seems to do his share.
You might say he’s takin’ it to the streets fighting the bureaucracy in an effort to improve the trucking industy for everyone.
As the president of Des Moines Truck Brokers in Norwalk, IA, his company was named in 2009 as the National Broker of the Year by the National
Jimmy DeMatteis Association of Small Trucking Companies (NASTC). DeMatteis serves on the executive committee of ASECTT (Alliance for Safe Efficient and Competitive Truck Transportation) and is chair of the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA) Political Action Committee.
While involved in these groups, not to mention others, he recently led a $12 million building project that now is the new headquarters for Capital City Fruit and Des Moines Truck Brokers.
A lot of DeMatteis’ efforts have been through the ASECTT trying to get some sanity put into the CSA-210, which is administered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). In the past he has blasted federal bureaucrats over the program which rates the safety of motor carriers. It also ends up rating many safe carriers as being unsafe, he states.
“The CSA scores are unproven, unreliable and based on factors the FMCSA doesn’t even understand,” DeMatteis states. “There has been massive amounts of costly research conducted and proven to be faulty. Yet every motor carrier on the road is subject to the CSA score at any given time. This could result in them being black balled from hauling freight.”
DeMatteis accuses the FMCSA of refusing to recognize their responsibility in this whole equation. His problem with this federal agency is it wants to “deputize” the trucking industry to police and do the job the bureaucrats should be doing. Instead, the FMCSA expects shippers and brokers to judge carrier fitness.
He points out FMCSA bases its safety program on percentages and no matter how many bad carriers are removed from the industry, there are always going to be 35 percent that are going have “alerts.” This is because the system only allows 65 percent of carriers to be considered safe operations at any one time.
As a result, DeMatteis contends some shippers are including requirements in contracts based on CSA scores that blacklist many good, small trucking companies. This results in many of these good small fleets going out of business because shippers and brokers refuse to work with them, due to so-called unsafe scores.
In the April issue of Dashboard, DTMB’s online newsletter, it lists goals of the ASECTT regarding CSA-210. They are:
Short Term Goal:
To require the FMCSA to redact publication of CSA 2010 methodology pending rulemaking or to otherwise affirm that data cannot be used in a court of law to establish vicarious liability and that shippers and brokers may rely upon the Agency’s current fitness determination of satisfactory, unsatisfactory or unrated (which is equivalent to satisfactory).
Long Term Goal:
To reestablish primacy of FMCSA for certifying safety, including preemption of state law.
For more details, visit www.asectt.blogspot.com
You buy a tasteless cantaloupe at Wal-Mart, or a sour grape sold as being sweet, just bring your receipt back to the store and they’ll refund you money, under a new police in U.S. stores selling produce. This according to a recent story by Reuters news service.
As the largest grocer and seller of produce in the United States, Wal-Mart has already lowered prices on produce as it tries to get its shoppers, many of whom are on limited budgets, to buy more healthy fare. The huge chain, which made a splash in produce nearly 20 years ago, but has since seen its produce departments lose some of their shine, says it is now working on getting fresher produce to its stores more quickly and training its staff to do a better job of selling the goods.
Walmart is buying directly from growers and relying on its own distribution centers and trucking systems to get product from the field to shelf faster. It has produce experts working with farmers in key growing regions and aims to double its sales of locally grown produce by December 2015.
Buying more local produce and cutting supply chain costs have helped Walmart keep a lid on prices, which has been key in its push to stay ahead of rivals that include traditional grocers such as Kroger Co and drugstores such as Walgreen Co. Walmart started to see sales gains in produce earlier this year after it began making improvements in produce handling.
Other chains, such as Safeway Inc and Texas’ H-E-B, have already offered guarantees on their produce, but Walmart’s push will be the biggest as it is the nation’s biggest retailer.
Walmart customers not satisfied with the produce can bring their receipt back to the store for a refund. Walmart said the shoppers will not need to bring back the produce to qualify.
To ensure that fresh produce makes it to the stores, Walmart said unnamed third-party service providers will do weekly checks in more than 3,400 of its stores selling produce. Walmart said it would benchmark itself and its competitors week over week.
Walmart also said it recently began a produce training program for 70,000 employees. Store managers, market managers and produce department managers are set to learn more about handling fruits and vegetables. Quality guides for workers will illustrate how to identify top produce, the company said.
The Skagit Valley north of Seattle, WA has become an important produce shipping area over the past couple of decades and has particularly become known for its quality fresh potatoes. Thus, with the collapse May 24 of a bridge in the area on Interstate 5, it is going to mean problems for produce truckers, and Skagit Valley shippers, not to mention big rigs just passing through the area.
Both truckers and farmers are constantly facing new challenges and this is certainly another one.
The Skagit Valley has built an admirable reputation for growing and shipping conventional red, white, gold and purple potatoes as well as organic red and russet potatoes, that are shipped all over the country.
A temporary bridge is expected to be in place in a few weeks, but transportation over this portion of I-5 certainly will not be back to normal when Skagit Valley potato shipments get underway in August.
The bridge collapse sent cars and people into the river. Three people were sent to area hospitals for treatment, but there were no fatalities.
It has been reported that an oversized and overweight big rig struck a girder at the top of the bridge, causing the collapse.
Vancouver, B.C. – The outlook for British Columbia’s 2013 blueberry crop is strong, according to the British Columbia Blueberry Council. If current weather trends hold, picking could start as early as the first week of July, coming in a couple of weeks earlier than last year’s harvest.
Early varieties of blueberry are already in full bloom, with later varieties also progressing well. Although it’s too early in the season to predict the size of the harvest, the region has had great weather for pollination. While there have been reports of some farms experiencing a shortage of bees, British Columbia is expecting an ample supply of good quality blueberries for the 2013 season.
“The last couple of years have been record crops for BC, but picking has started late,” said Debbie Etsell, executive director of the BC Blueberry Council. “The combination of the mild winter and warm spring this year puts us on track for a harvest that is more typical, as far as timing goes, starting around the first or second week of July.”
About the British Columbia Blueberry Council
The British Columbia Blueberry Council represents over 800 blueberry growers, located in some of Canada’s most rich and fertile farmland. Plantings of premium quality highbush blueberries top 11,000 hectares in British Columbia and produce upwards of 55 million kilograms of blueberries annually. With more than $1 billion in sales in the past five years, Canada is the third largest national producer of sweet and juicy highbush blueberries in the world. Available fresh in B.C. from July through October, BC blueberries are also frozen, dried, juiced, puréed and powdered, available for year round-distribution throughout Canada and around the world.
Source: British Columbia Blueberry Council
Only a few weeks ago if someone predicted there would be 21% more USA fresh-market apples in storage than the year before, you’d been considered a little nuts. The same goes are anyone predicted there would be nearly 130 million boxes of apples shipped this season, especially after year’s damage to apple crops in Michigan and New York.
Washington state is on pace to ship 129.6 million boxes this season, shattering the previous record by more than 20 million boxes.
Consider this. Washington could ship 132,245 truckload equivalents of apples this season, which ends this summer. (divide 129.6 million boxes by 1,980 boxes of apples that make up a truck load.)
Washington grower-shippers and officials knew they’d have a big crop, but not this big. Following July hailstorms, the estimate was in the 100 million to 110 million box range.
Apparently the 2012 crop is no fluke. It seems every five to seven years, apple shipments have jumped to another level. In recent years loadings were in the 100- million to 109-million box range. Prior to this there were years where shipments settled into the 80-million box volume.
For the 2013-13 season, observers are already talking about shipments being in the 120-million box range. In other words, loadings hitting 120-million boxes is expected to become the new standard.
Michigan and New York apples
Apple shippers in Michigan and New York are expressing optimism about a big comeback from a disastrous freeze killing 2012-13 season that wiped out about 85% of Michigan’s crop and 52% of New York’s.
Early variety apple shipments are expected to get underway around the third week of August.
Washington state apples – grossing about $6600 to New York City.
Darrell L. Ruban, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Field Administrator, declared a regional emergency as of 10 a.m. EDT, May 21, 2013, for the state of Oklahoma following the May 20 tornado that cut a wide swath of destruction through the town of Moore and surrounding areas.
The declaration provides broad regulatory exemptions to CFR Parts 390-399 for truck carriers and operators providing emergency relief materials and services to Oklahoma customers. Drivers for motor carriers operating under the declaration must obtain and keep a copy of the declaration in their possession. Carriers, drivers and vehicles currently under an out-of-service order are not eligible for the exemption.
The declaration will be in effect “for the duration of the emergency or 15 days (June 5, 2013), whichever is less.”
In reply, refer to: MC-EFS-SV
Last month the produce vendors at the Hunts Point Terminal Wholesale Market sued New York City, naming as a defendant the Business Integrity Commission, a law-enforcement agency that regulates public food markets and haulers and carters, among other industries. Known as BIC, the agency has long been a source of contention for the produce executives, who claim it oversteps its authority, according to Crain’s New York Business.
Hunts Point is the world’s largest produce wholesale market and thousands of 18 wheelers deliver fresh fruits and vegetable to the complex each week.
The lawsuit accuses BIC of defrauding the produce market and of being duplicitous because although the agency’s role is to root out corruption and remove employees who have ties to organized crime, it awarded a consulting contract several years ago to an obscure security firm whose principals had extensive criminal records. BIC required the market to pay the firm, Global Consulting, $100,000 to prepare a report on security procedures at Hunts Point, Crain’s reports.
Two years of negotiations between the city and the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market over a new 30-year lease and a revamped facility have led to a dead end and a lawsuit. The two sides agree on only one point: They are at an impasse.
The last time any meaningful discussion took place between the market and the city, which owns the land at the 113-acre site, was in January. That’s when the market, operated by 41 merchants who are part of a cooperative, rejected the city’s offer to extend its lease by 10 years while it continued to work on a deal to renovate the 46-year-old facility.
Watsonville, CA – Last month the United States Department of Agriculture released its annual Pesticide Data Program Report. Among the USDA findings– “U.S. food does not pose a safety concern based upon pesticide residues.” In light of activist groups’ annual release of their re-interpretation of the USDA PDP report findings, the Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF) urges the media and consumers to read the government report to see firsthand what it actually says.
“Under the Obama Administration, the USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency clearly and concisely explain in the PDP report how the government and corresponding regulatory processes and systems are protective of all consumers, including infants and children,” says Marilyn Dolan, Executive Director of the AFF. “However, some groups take these USDA PDP report findings, manipulate the data and turn a positive report about food safety into a negative one. All we’re asking is that people actually read the USDA PDP report instead of the re-interpretation from activist groups, like the ‘Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce’ and its ‘Dirty Dozen’ list.”
Further, independent scientists who examined the “Shoppers Guide and Dirty Dozen” list found that the methodology used to re-package the government data did not follow any established scientific procedures, that risk was not examined and therefore this list/guide should not be used when making purchasing decisions. The most recent peer reviewed analysis of the “Shoppers Guide” methodologies appeared in the Journal of Toxicology.
“Manipulation of government data which unfairly undermines consumer confidence about the safety of produce is a detriment to public health, especially when American’s need to include more fruits and vegetables in their daily diets,” Dolan says. “Families deserve factual, science based and balanced information about the safety of organic and conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, which the Obama Administration provided in the actual PDP report. Why read a questionable re-interpretation when you could just read the real report?” Dolan says.
The Alliance recommends that consumers who want to improve their health simply follow the advice of health experts everywhere and eat more of both organic and conventionally grown produce.
“For all of us involved in promoting better consumer health, increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables is among our main objectives. The benefits of consuming plenty of fruits and vegetables are absolutely indisputable. Consumers should eat both organic and conventionally grown produce without worrying about minute levels of pesticide residues,” says Dr. Carl Keen, Professor of Nutrition and Internal Medicine at University of California, Davis.
Consumers who want more information on the safety of organic and conventionally grown fruits and vegetables can visit the safefruitsandveggies.com website. This website was developed by experts in food safety, toxicology, nutrition, risk analysis and farming. “We hope consumers visit this site and read, learn and then choose what foods are best for their families,” Dolan explains.
For consumers who may still be concerned about pesticide residues, they should simply wash their fruits and vegetables. According to the Federal Food and Drug Administration, you can reduce and often eliminate residues if they are present at all on fresh fruits and vegetables simply by washing. “Washing is a healthful habit and should be used before eating either organic or conventional produce,” Dolan says.
The Alliance for Food and Farming is a non-profit organization formed in 1989 which represents organic and conventional farmers and farms of all sizes. Alliance contributors are limited to farmers of fruits and vegetables, companies that sell, market or ship fruits and vegetables or organizations that represent produce farmers. Our mission is to deliver credible information to consumers about the safety of all fruits and vegetables. The Alliance does not engage in any lobbying nor do we accept any money or support from the pesticide industry.
Source: The Alliance for Food and Farming
DeltaTRAK will showcase the ThermoTrace Time Temperature Indicator (TTI) solution at the United Fresh show in San Diego, CA May 15th and 16th, (booth#1508). The TTI solution has been chosen as a United Fresh Best New Food Safety Product Finalist.
DeltaTRAK’s ThermoTrace TTI solution provides customers with a cost effective way to use 2D bar codes combined with chemical label technology to monitor accumulated temperature abuse of products as they travel through the cold chain. Recently selected as a United Fresh Best New Food Safety Product Finalist, the solution is unique in the marketplace and enhances our customer’s ability to add temperature information to the PTI guidelines for documentation.
DeltaTRAK’s FlashRF Data Central is a cloud-based solution that provides a system wide view and control of locally installed FlashLink RF 2.4 GHz wireless temperature/humidity monitoring networks. FlashRF Data Central is accessed through all modern web browsers and provides an easy-to-use interface that combines topical facility maps, logger temperature graphs and hierarchical facility network structures. Produce growers, shippers, processors and retailers can quickly access temperature data at any given time giving you better visibility of produce quality.
DeltaTRAK manufactures and sells a variety of data loggers and in-transit recorders to meet your cold chain management needs. Data loggers and in-transit recorders are an important part of any cold chain management solution. The ability to record temperature during transport helps to determine if a shipment of produce should be accepted or rejected. Data recorded during storage can help determine if a temperature-sensitive commodity is being stored at its optimum temperature for freshness.
For more information please contact your DeltaTRAK representative at salesinfo@deltatrak.com or by calling 800-962-6776/925-249-2250.
DeltaTRAK, Inc. is a leading innovator of Cold Chain Management and Food Safety, and Environment Monitoring Solutions.
Source: DeltaTRAK
Here’s a round up of some loading and coming loading opportunities in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, where produce shipments have been slower gaining momentum due to temperatures below normal.
Florida
Tomato shipments have pretty much finished in the Immokalee area and have shifted to the Palmetto-Ruskin district. Loadings were very light at the beginning of May, but now volume is picking up. Due to weather conditions some disease problems have appeared, so be watchful what you are putting on the truck.
Florida watermelons like it hot and cool weather has put shipments behind schedule. Watermelon loadings should be hitting good volume by the end of May.
Mixed vegetables also continue to be shipped.
Georgia
Blueberry shipments continue to increase from Georgia as new acreage comes into production each year. In fact, the state is now one of the leading shippers of “blues.” Georgia should have about 70 million pounds of blueberries, which equals about 1,750 truckload equivalents.
Georgia has about 22,000 acres of blueberries. Shipments, which have been underway a couple of weeks, are now moving into volume.
Like other produce items, a cool spring has delayed Georgia peach shipments. There should be around 1.8 to 2 million, 25 pound cartons of peaches for hauling this season. Good quality and normal volume is predicted. Shipments should continue into mid-August.
Vidalia onion shipments are lower due to weather and disease, but moderate volume continues from Southeastern Georgia. Mixed veggies from Central and Southern Georgia also continue.
South Carolina
Despite cold and wet weather prections for South Carolina strawberries, shipments are good. Strawberry loadings usually end in May, but this year are expected to continue through June.
South Carolina peach loadings also look promising. Light shipments get underway in a few weeks. Florida mixed vegetable loads – grossing about $3200 to Chicago.