Posts Tagged “feature”
Fresh produce prices will increase 3.5% to 4.5% due to inflation this year, according to the latest USDA retail price forecast.
That compares to 2% price drop in 2012 for all fresh produce.
The Economic Research Service, a part of the USDA, report retail fresh fruit prices for 2013 are predicted to rise 3% to 4% in 2013, after 1% inflation in 2012 and 3.3% higher prices in 2011. With fresh fruit prices decreasing .5% in April, the USDA reported the fresh fruit index is up 1.4% from the same time a year ago.
The Department of Commerce in April reported the average retail price per pound of red delicious apples was $1.33 per pound, up seven cents per pound from April 2012. Retail navel orange prices were 98 cents per pound in April, up from 91 cents per pound the same time a year ago. Retail banana prices, at 60 cents per pound in April, were unchanged from a year ago.
Fresh vegetable retail prices are predicted to rise from 4% to 5% in 2013, after a 5.1% decline in retail prices in 2012 and a 5.6% gain in 2011.
The fresh vegetable index dropped 2.7% in April, but prices were still up 4.6% compared with the same time in 2012. The average retail price of tomatoes in April was $1.46 per pound, up from $1.39 per pound in April 2012.
The consumer price of all food consumed at home in 2013 is forecast to climb 2.5% to 3.5%, the same forecast range as food consumed away from home.
Cats are very controversial animals.
It’s amazing how cats can bring out the worst in some people. For some strange reason cats are not a “neutral” animal. Everyone seems to have a definite opinion of cats. They are either liked or intensely disliked. You could see a yak walking down the street and when someone said “Hey look there goes a yak” the response would be a shrug of the shoulders and a comment like “so what, yaks are yaks.”
However, you can see a cat cross the street and make the comment “Look a cat,” and someone will almost always respond with a death threat for the cat. There are many articles written about why people hate cats and almost all are written by cat lovers. They all seem to miss the point and many attribute the dislike of cats to some primal “fear of cats.”
Fear could not be further from the truth. Most cat haters derive their dislike of cats from experience with them. Cats are not very trainable. You never see a duck hunter going out with his retriever cat to bag some mallards. You never see a fetch cat get the morning newspaper, or see a sign that says “Beware Watch Cat.”
Cats have an attitude. They are demanding and tend to ignore any command you give them. Come to think of it, so do most wives.
On the other hand a friend of mine says they are just stupid and don’t have the capacity for learning commands and spoken words like dogs do.
Cats don’t like water and most humans do. This may have something to do with it. You can always take a dog out boating. Dogs love to swim and play in the water. Cats on the other hand, almost never bathe. They sit around and lick themselves. I’m sorry, licking yourself is no substitute for a good soaking bath. John S. Nichols said, “Cats aren’t clean, they’re just covered with cat spit.”
On top of that, they cough up large slimy hair balls. You would think that cats would learn that eating your own hair makes you barf, but no,they keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Sort of like politicians.
Women seem to like cats more than men do. Maybe they have more in common with cats than with dogs. After all, I don’t know of any women who are good at fetching a downed bird.
Dogs are very grateful animals. They will wag their tail to show satisfaction and they will eat just about anything you give them. Cats are no where near as amiable.
Cats wag their tail to show you they are annoyed, and they quite often turn down the same food they just ate four hours ago. Cats are not reliable sniffers. This may be the reason you never see an officer walking around an airport with his drug sniffing cat. Cats get away with more.
If the cat took a dump on your wife’s favorite rug it would be no problem. You would hear comments like “poor thing, you must be feeling bad.”
But if you just happen to spill some barbeque sauce or beer on the same rug all hell would break loose. Just what is it about these worthless cats that deserves this special treatment? Cats are just not very smart. A cat will whine and want to go outside on a cold raw day only to whine and want back inside 10 minutes later. Then in an hour or less the stupid cat will forget how raw and cold it was and want back outside again.
In my opinion cats bring out the empathy in most right-brained people. Cats, being basically worthless, bring out an unconscious empathy for such a stupid creature. A lot of people are also like that. Not all cats are cast from the same mold. Some cats have an identity crisis and even think they are dogs.
There is no greater cat hater than a cat that thinks it’s a dog, sort of like reformed smokers. Now don’t get me wrong. Not all cats are worthless. Some cats are very good mousers and ratters. Outdoor cats are preferred by most ranchers and farmers for that very reason. I guess most of us guys can learn to tolerate
Larry Oscar is a graduate from the University of Tulsa and holds a degree in electrical engineering. He is retired and lives with his wife on a lake in Oklahoma where he brews his own beer, sails, and is a member of numerous clubs and organizations.
Overweight trucks legally transporting produce into the USA from Mexico might be possible, if the state of Texas eases some rules and regulations. The state and some others see a benefit of easing border congestion.
The Texas House of Representatives recently passed legislation to create an “overweight corridor” at the USA -Mexico border, and the Texas Senate is expected to vote on it soon.
The proposed corridor, from the Anzalduas Bridge to the Pharr/Reynosa Bridge, would be an area where Mexican trucks carrying fresh produce would be able to enter the U.S. even if they were overweight. Trucks would then offload their extra weight at a U.S. cold storage facility.
A Mexican truck, under current law, carrying produce that weighs too much, faces a stiff fine if it crosses into the USA.
Currently, trucks are weighed on the Mexican side of the border, and extra product is typically offloaded there if the truck is overweight. This procedure delays truck movement at the border and exposes perishable fruits and vegetables to the elements as it waits for another truck to pick it up.
Trucks that are overweight would be charged a fee, under the proposed law, which is much smaller than the current fine. The big rig would then be allowed to proceed to a cold storage facility in the overweight zone’s boundaries.
Arizona already has a similar law.
Funds from the overweight fees would be used to maintain the roads that will be carrying the heavier loads.
Touting fresh U.S. blueberries and California strawberries as key ingredients, Wendy’s restaurants are again offering berry almond chicken salads.
The fast food restaurant chain plans to buy 2 million pounds of strawberries and 1 million pounds of blueberries from now through September to meet customer demands for the seasonal salad, according to a news release from the Dublin, Ohio-based company.
Wendy’s officials hinted in the release that unseasonable weather in berry growing regions of the U.S. had an effect on the timing of the reintroduction of the berry almond salad.
“Thank goodness berries are ripening on the vine — at last,” Derek Detenber, Wendy’s vice president of brand management, said in the release.
The the salads include 11 types of field greens, in addition to fresh berries, providing a total of three servings of vegetables and one serving of fruit, according to the release. As with its other fresh produce items, Wendy’s employees slice fresh strawberries for the salads at individual restaurants.
Salads have been on the menu at Wendy’s for almost 35 years, with the chain selling more than 100 million salads in the U.S. in 2012, according to the news release. In 2012 Zagat rated Wendy’s salads as No. 1 in the fast food category, beating out Panaera, Chipolte and Subway.
Months after talks over a new site for the Hunts Point Terminal Market broke down, the market’s vendors have sued the City of New York.
Hunts Point is the world’s largest wholesale terminal produce market and thousands of refrigerated big rigs deliver fresh produce to it daily, for distribution throughout New England and much of the East Coast.
On April 22, the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Cooperative Association sued the city and its Business Integrity Commission, according to court documents filed in Bronx Supreme Court.
The association claims in the suit that the Business Integrity Commission, which oversees many activities at Hunts Point, forced produce wholesalers to hire an unqualified consultant to review the association’s public safety department.
A no-bid contract was issued to Long Island-based Global Consulting LLC, which, the suit argues, not only was unqualified for the job but was run by principals with “checkered law enforcement histories.”
The work Global Consulting did for the association was “superficial” and consisted largely of documents provided by the association itself.
The association is suing the City and the Business Integrity Commission for $500,000.
The lawsuit comes at a time when talks between Hunts Point’s produce vendors and the City over construction of a new terminal market have broken down.
In a January meeting, the market board rejected a city offer to amend its existing lease.
Talks are not expected to resume until 2014, when a new mayor enters office.
Photo: Courtesy Vidalia® Onion Committee
Shipments of New Jersey-grown peaches should get underway in early July, a little later than last year. Good quality and quantity are being predicted, with loadings lasting through mid-September. More volume is seen this season since some trees planted three to five years ago are coming into production. (more…)
Potential loads for cherries have taken a hit in the Northwest due to an April frost and heavy May rains.
Estimates are now at 17 million boxes, down from 18.6 million boxes.
Loadings will be adversely affected the most on early varieties like chelans and early bings.
Caution is urged when you are at the loading dock and be on the look out for splitting in cherries and other issues.
Shipments are underway, but expected to be lighter than normal. Volume should be decent within a couple of weeks for deliveries to retailers for the Fourth of July holiday. Good volume and much better quality is seen during the month of July.
California cherry shipments are on the downside and this should result in good demand for fruit available in the Northwest, especially with its current light volume.
Oregon Cherries
Hood River cherry shipments in Oregon are expected to start around July 15th and should continue through August. Good volume and quality are forecast.
California Fruit
California’s Watsonville district should have good strawberry volume for shipments leading up to the Fourth of July holiday. The same can be said for stone fruit loadings originating out of the San Joaquin Valley.
New Jersey Blueberries
New Jersey’s blueberry shipments should start this week with good volume heading into the Fourth of July. Good quality should reduce your chances of claims or rejected loads.
Georgia Sweet Corn
Georgia sweet corn loadings, along with a number of mixed vegetables should make for good loading opportunities. There’s also Fort Valley peaches and Vidalia onions. Quality on all these items is now generally good.
South Georgia mixed vegetables – grossing about $3200 to Boston.
San Joaquin Valley stone fruit – grossing about $6900 to Atlanta.
While the Peterbilt may be considered the Cadillac of trucks with many drivers, Fernado Jemenez will take a Freightliner anyday. He’s driven both.
Fernado is both a company driver and a small fleet owner. HaulProduce.com caught up with the Los Angeles-based trucker a couple of months ago at a Pilot Truck Stop in Vienna, GA, while he was waiting word from dispatch for his next load.
He is driving for I&F Transportation and operating a 2005 Peterbilt, powered by a 470 h.p. Cat diesel, and pulling a 53-Utility trailer with a Carrier reefer unit.
The 40-year-0ld trucker says, “I’m just not happy with this Pete. It shakes too much; rides rough, and there just is not enough room in the sleeper. I want to drive a Classic. I own two Freightliners, and I like them a lot.”
He says the Peterbilt consumes too much fuel and only averages 4.5 mpg.
As the small fleet owner of FJ Transport, he prefers his Freightliners. His own company uses a combination of working directly with some shippers on loads, while using brokers on others.
Fernado has been trucking six years and wishes the rates on dry freight would pick up, noting that produce loads are paying a lot more.
He had a load of produce from Californa, requring six pick ups that took three days to get loaded. It was delivered to Pompano Beach, FL. He deadheaded to Georgia and had been waiting seven hours at the truck stop for his dispatcher to assign a load.
No one said trucking was easy, but Fernado was trying to show patience, waiting on a load to take him back to the West Coast.
Hauling fresh produce tends to provide much higher freight rates than dry freight, obviously because of the perishability of fresh fruits and vegetables, and the extra care required with temperature, humdity, air circulation in the load, etc.
The higher risk to which truckers are exposed, also includes the possibilites of claims that reduce a driver’s pay check, or even worse, having the load rejected.
The degree of exposure to problems upon arrival at destination can depend on the honesty and integrity of the parties involved. Did the shipper pre-cool the product? Did the driver maintain proper temperature settings? Did the buyer or receiver pay too much for that product five days ago when the order was placed, and now the fruit on the market is worth $2 a box less? All of these examples can lead to claims or rejections with produce loads.
There have been studies over the years including the recent one titled Comparison of Pallet Cover Systems to Maintain Strawberry Fruit Quality During Transport which provides some interesting information. For example, this research concludes that TransFresh Corp’s Tectrol process reduces fruit decay by increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in pallets covered by bags.
With CO2 levels increased by 11 to 16 percent, Tectrol beats its competitors in the important area of decay in strawberries by up to seven percent following delivery and two days on the shelf.
So how does this translate into a reduction in claims and load rejections for the produce trucker, if there is less decay in product being transported?
“That’s an interesting equation,” states Rich Macleod of TransFresh Corp. , Salinas, CA. “No one will ever talk about that. No one gives us their data. We’ve never been able to prove that (fewer claims, rejected loads), because we get it (information) by hersay.”
Macleod says experienced drivers know if they pick up a load of strawberries covered with bags, they are confident there will be no problems with that load. The expert in controlled atmosphere loads has been told by retailers “…their strawberry program is much easier” since using Tectrol.
However, when he asks that customer for data relating to load rejection and claims for strawberries comparing shipments with and without CO2 infused bagged pallets, he hits a stone wall. Those receivers acknowledge the benefits of Tectrol, but refuse to provide any statistics.
(This is the last of a 6-part series featuring an interview with Rich Macleod, vice president, pallet division North America for TransFresh Corp., Salinas, CA. He has been with company since 1976, and has a masters degree in post harvest science from the University of California, Davis.)
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