Freight News:
Running on Ice: Cool investments
Hello, and welcome to the coolest community in freight! Here you’ll find the latest information on warehouse news, tech developments and all things reefer madness-related. I’m your controller of the thermostat, Mary O’Connell. Thanks for having me!
All thawed out
Carrier Global Corp., a global provider of intelligent building and cold chain solutions, has invested in Ember LifeSciences, a pharmaceutical cold chain. Ember LifeSciences is a spinoff of Ember Technologies. The main reason for the investment is the company’s product Ember Cube, which per a news release is the world’s first self-refrigerated, cloud-based shipping box. The release also goes on to say the Ember Cube “reports location, temperature and humidity levels to the cloud for real-time tracking. The reusable and rechargeable shipping box features a refrigeration system to help ensure the safety of temperature-sensitive biologics while in transit.” The end goal of this technology is to reduce the amount of packaging waste in landfills.
In other partnership news. Arcadia Cold, a cold storage 3PL, has partnered with Blue Yonder, a leader in digital supply chain and omnichannel commerce fulfillment. Arcadia Cold is launching a platform that has access to a national cold storage network of high-quality facilities across the U.S. Within this newly cemented network Arcadia Cold is implementing Blue Yonder’s warehouse management system, labor management and warehouse tasking systems in its new 200,000-pallet-position network.
Temperature checks
It’s not a new warehouse, but a new patent should be equally celebrated. DeltaTrak was issued a patent that works with its new product, FlashTrack Global Chain of Custody. According to a news release, “The journey of perishable goods from the growing environment to consumers is critical to prevent spoilage, reduce waste and ensure product safety. Due to siloed, antiquated systems, no single entity has comprehensive data on the entire journey of a perishable good.” Bringing everything together under one application increases decision-making and can help reduce costs at a time when costs are seemingly to only rise.
Here it grows again. RLS Logistics is expanding its Newfield, New Jersey, cold storage warehouse with hopes that the project will be completed by the end of the year. This will result in more cold storage, fulfillment and cross-docking options.
“We are overjoyed to announce the expansion at our Newfield, NJ, campus because Newfield houses traditional cold storage, our LTL cross dock, and direct to consumer fulfillment business units; we have always been tight on capacity. This expansion allows us to increase inventory storage and our capabilities in fulfillment and LTL cross docking,” said John Gaudet, vice president of RLS Logistics, in a news release.
Food and drugs
The Internet of Things (IoT) looks to be the next big thing in the fight against food waste. IoT has gotten a lot of hype lately and it’s basically just a network of physical objects — things — that have sensors, software and other tech for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices over the internet, at least that’s how Oracle puts it.
Now how does it work against food spoilage? Great question, I’d love to tell you. Placing physical sensors on shipments shows in real time what the temperature is, the humidity, location, every detail you never knew you wanted on a shipment of food you now have without having to leave the office. Utilizing this technology, shippers, drivers, carriers, etc. know exactly when food is hitting its perishable window.
For example, a keg of beer isn’t supposed to be outside of a temperature-controlled area for more than six hours. If a driver is three hours away and doesn’t have a reefer trailer, this technology will let you know what temperature the beer hits and when, thus resulting in fewer claims and less temperature testing upon arrival.
Cold chain lanes
This week’s cold market is actually heating up in the Pacific Northwest. Reefer Outbound Tender Rejections have risen 599 basis points week over week. When rejections are hovering around 10% or higher, that typically indicates that some inflationary pressure is occurring on the spot market. Given that barely 90% of contracted freight is being accepted, expect rates to rise on freight coming out of Seattle. Given the aggressive increase in rejections, rates will have a strong upward trend for the next week or two.
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Shelf life
Frozen food packaging market to rise at $64.0 billion by 2031
Oil giant BP buying major truck stop chain TravelCenters
OK with the change in management? Shoot me an email with comments, questions or story ideas at moconnell@freightwaves.com.
See you on the internet.
Mary
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Source: freightwaves - Running on Ice: Cool investments
Editor: Mary O'Connell