All thawed out
Life sciences as a chilly chain development is getting tossed around increasingly more because the yr kicks off. Most recently DHL Supply Chain announced it was investing $200 million to expand health care and life sciences capabilities within the U.S.
This investment will include five more warehouses by the tip of the yr. The warehouses might be in-built Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The 2 locations were chosen due to pharmaceutical hubs and research facilities in the encompassing areas.
Jim Saponaro, the president of Life Sciences and Healthcare for DHL Supply Chain, said in a Supply Chain Brain article, “Resilient life sciences and healthcare supply chains are critical to the well-being of communities around the globe.”
Temperature checks
Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and florists across the globe are respiration a sigh of relief after the delivery of hundreds of thousands of flowers. Long before everyone starts preparing for next yr’s holiday, let’s have a look at what happened to make this yr’s go off with no hitch.
Giving flowers to a valentine dates back to the seventeenth century. King Charles II of Sweden learned the “language of flowers” on a visit to Persia and brought it back to Europe. Thus the tradition of giving red roses to symbolize deep love was born.
Fast forward to 2024. There are nearly 250 million roses grown in preparation for Valentine’s Day yearly. From the time the flowers are cut, there’s a really small time window to get the flowers to their destinations before they begin to wilt.
The most important hub for flowers coming to the U.S. is Miami International Airport. Eighty-five percent of cut flower imports enter through the airport, where they’re inspected and shipped on refrigerated vans across the country. Ordinarily, there are seven flights a day from Latin America dedicated to flowers for that airport alone. Through the Valentine’s Day season, that may increase to 35 flights a day.
It’s high stakes but when it’s February and freight volumes leave just a little to be desired, it’s a great gig for reliable carriers.
Food and medicines
Speaking of accelerating refrigerated freight hitting the market, for carriers for the Taco Bell world, there’s some demand coming down the pipe. Channeling its inner tech bro, Taco Bell held a “Live Más Live” event, where it recognized Taco Bell consumers and announced innovations. Truthfully, it’s the most important flex for any fast food chain, and I’m sad to not have attended in person.
This yr, Taco Bell announced the next latest and returning products:
- A brand new value menu, with 10 items priced at $3 or less – including a chicken enchiladas burrito.
- A chicken and steak enchilada grilled cheese dipping taco.
- Ducle de leche Cinnabon delights.
- Nacho fries out longer, with the tip goal to be a everlasting year-round offering.
- A secret Aardvark fry sauce collaboration.
- Customer voting on the Mexi-melt or the caramel apple empanada, with the winner brought back on Halloween.
- A cheesy chicken Crispanada, available now.
- A cheesy street chalupa.
- Chicken nuggets.
As with most of Taco Bell’s latest releases, demand rises quickly. Any carrier currently working in or hoping to be within the Taco Bell network for the yr should look to get entangled now.
Cold chain lanes
This week’s SONAR market is none apart from the house of all of the flowers, Miami. Each reefer outbound tender volumes and reefer outbound tender rejections are on a downward trend. That trend is typical for this time of the yr on condition that we’ve passed Valentine’s Day and demand is returning to normal. Reefer outbound tender rejection levels have dropped 84 basis points week over week, coming in at under 1%. That news should make any shipper completely happy as just about all reefer freight being tendered is getting picked up.
Is SONAR for you? Test it out with a demo!
Shelf life
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Wanna chat within the cooler? Shoot me an email with comments, questions or story ideas at moconnell@freightwaves.com.
See you on the web.
Mary
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