Winter storm in Texas causes severe food supply chain disruption
Stock at grocery stores were running low as winter storms crippled Texas state and left millions without power, as well as boil-water advisories. Temporary impacts to manufacturing, warehousing and store operations have caused a severe disruption in the food supply chain. The storm is also delaying cross-border shipments, and crossings that typically take a day are taking two or three days.
The storm’s impact is all too familiar to the issues that food supply chain managers faced less than a year ago at the beginning of the pandemic, when panic-buying ensued. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller issued a red alert about the food supply chain earlier this week, and said grocery retailers are unable to get dairy product shipments. Upstream however, farmers are dumping milk because processing plants did not have power. “We’re looking at a food supply chain problem like we’ve never seen before, even with COVID-19.” Miller said. The timing of the storm came just after Lunar New Year and Presidents Day weekend, which also contributed to capacity challenges.
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Royal Mail reduces emissions with efficiency-boosting tech
As part of Royal Mail’s latest efforts toward sustainable operations, the mail delivery service has begun to roll out telemetry technology into an additional 11,000 small vans, in order to encourage fuel efficient driving styles. With ambitions to complete the initiative later this year, the majority of the Royal Mail fleet will be fitted with the technology to reduce its carbon emissions. In addition to the installation, all new Royal Mail collection and delivery vans will contain some form of telemetry technology.
By monitoring a driver’s acceleration, speed, turning and braking patterns to give positive feedback, telemetry systems encourage more fuel efficient and safer driving styles. Since 2019, the system has saved them 177,000 liters of fuel, leading to a reduction of 459 tons of carbon emissions. Sustainability is one of the defining issues of our generation, and by expanding the use of the telemetry technology’s integrated fleet, driver and mapping solutions across its fleet, Royal Mail will have the real-time telemetry tools needed to reach its long-term operational sustainability goals.
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Kuehne + Nagel buys Hong Kong forwarder Apex
Kuehne + Nagel, the second-largest third-party logistics provider in the world by gross revenue $25.9 billion) has agreed to acquire Hong Kong-based Apex International Corp. to better tap into e-commerce trade in Asia. The combination of Apex and Kuehne + Nagel provides an opportunity to offer customers a compelling proposition in the competitive Asian logistics industry, especially in e-commerce fulfilment, high-tech and e-mobility.
The takeover of Apex culminates several years of expansion in the Asia-Pacific region for Kuehne + Nagel. In January 2020, Kuehne + Nagel declared it would focus on accelerating growth in Asia after consolidating its footprint in Europe and North America. The transaction is subject to regular corporate approvals and clearance by regulators in both countries.
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