Sunday, April 05, 2020

How does food get to us?

Semi trucks along the open road. Oklahoma, April, 2011. A vital element in the food supply chain of the US.

We all know that supermarkets and other food sellers in the past few weeks have been adapting their business methods to accommodate shoppers who want to maintain social distance, to have food delivered to their home or their car without entering the store, and to satisfy increased demand for pantry staples, fresh meat and produce, and of course toilet paper. These markets are only the endpoint in the long supply chain of farmers and harvest workers, food processors, cargo transport providers, and local distributors. Each step in this chain has its own problems with production, labor, safety from contagion, and more.

I was curious about one particular step: the transport of food from producers -- many of them overseas -- into the wholesale and distribution system of most big city markets in the US.

CNN summarized the situation a few days ago:
"The transportation links that move food around the globe are being tested in unprecedented ways. Shipowners are struggling to change crews and move goods between ports. Airlines have grounded thousands of planes, slashing air freight capacity. 
"Travel restrictions also are clogging up road networks and making it difficult for farm workers to get where they are needed. And at the end of food supply chains, supermarkets that have come to rely on just-in-time deliveries have been upset by huge demand and panic buying." (link)
Bloomberg News says: "Truckers hauling food are facing delays across the globe in the latest disruption to supply chains snarled by the coronavirus pandemic. ... Huge spikes in demand have caused lags for loading at some U.S. warehouses." Shutdowns of public rest areas along some of the interstates have added to the challenge for long-distance truck drivers. (link)

Cargo ports, container ships, long-distance semi-trucks, freight trains, delivery vans, and the like sometimes seem to be just a picturesque part of the landscape. Now we have to worry about their capacity to keep up with a new and perhaps long term crisis. Here are some sights I've seen and photographed that made me think about the overwhelming complexity of our situation.

Seattle, Washington. Cargo Port (2013)
The west coast of the US receives a large amount of food from Asia, where the pandemic has disrupted production.
"The vast majority of the world's food supply is carried on ships, either in containers or on board bulk carriers." (CNN)
 Panama Canal, Cargo Port from deck of our National Geographic ship. (2014)
Throughout the world, many ports have closed or restricted access, making shipping more difficult.
Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company, has kept workers onboard many ships to avoid infection.
Life aboard a cargo ship is very isolated and stressful, however, so this can be only a very temporary solution.
From CNN:
"Rules governing port access differ from country to country, and sometimes even within countries, making it very difficult for shipowners to plan routes, said Guy Platten, secretary general at the International Chamber of Shipping. This could snarl food supply chains, particularly for time-sensitive fresh produce, he added. 
"Delays in transit from ports in China are likely to cause apple juice shortages in the United States, according to a March 13 report by commodities research firm Mintec. Two-thirds of the apple juice Americans drink comes from China."
Cargo in the harbor of Ushuia, Argentina. From the National Geographic Explorer. (2017)
ariz-to-ca6071
On the horizon: a freight train crossing the Mojave Desert. (2011)
Rail and trucking industry are critical to our food supply, moving food from farms in the west to consumers in the east.
The rail industry has instituted a variety of measures to keep the workers safe and keep the trains running. (link)
Food is a primal concern throughout the world right now. The coronavirus threatens the health and life of almost every person on earth, and no one has a convincing prediction about the length of the pandemic, just that it will be long. Besides this most onerous threat, one can worry about the economic disaster resulting from the closure of many businesses, the resulting unemployment and impoverishment of many workers, the real danger to those who already lived in want -- and if you worry about the stock market and investments, those worries. But food is primal.

Experts reassure us about our food supply here in the US. For example, they say that flour supplies will be ok because there was already a surplus of wheat, besides which the surplus is increased by a drop in international demand. But will flour mills find enough paper bags to produce enough consumer-sized packages for the excess demand that's emerged? Will trucks or trains be able to bring it from the mills to the wholesalers? Will there be enough workers to deliver it to supermarkets and enough employees to put it on the shelves? For those of us not going out, will home delivery times improve? Good questions! I'm optimistic, but not totally reassured.

End of the transportation chain: a FedEx truck
delivering in my neighborhood.
Blog post and all photos copyright © 2011 - 2020 mae sander

8 comments:

  1. This is going to change everything. The dice are in the air, and the gods cheat.

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  2. In Venice you are always aware of how food gets around as it's all done by boats and people walking around. Hopefully people will use this time to buy local produce. We export a lot of fruit and it's apple picking season where I live so the impact of no exporting right now will directly impact us. I've still not had groceries delivered but it could soon become the new norm.

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  3. Here truckers aren´t allowed to go to rest areas in some places. How are they supposed to...?
    Medication... I was subscribed a six-months dosis and could only get three months. Basics came from China and don´t come no more.
    And still people have to be out and about, celebrating "Corona parties", coughing at elderlies and screaming "Corona!"..

    Sad, weird times.
    We still have enough food - and TP.

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  4. I just ordered flour from King Arthur as a surprise for Rick. So far we are OK -- can't get everything but we can certainly get more than enough to live and eat well. I feel for those who aren't able to get food so easily, either because of quarantine restrictions or availability to a market. They had to close a nearby farmer's market because someone tested positive. It's all so much...

    This was fascinating. I knew some of it from the news but not all. Well done!

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  5. Food supply pretty good here, but I don't think the trains carrying it, to be loaded on trucks, get all the recognition they deserve!!!

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  6. I really hope the supply chain for food will keep going. I saw your walk in the park; that picture of the bluebird is adorable. I really wish I could go and walk outside but my daughter does not want me to because of my heart condition. As a birthday present 12 days ago, she had some groceries delivered to me. (In Nashville people are walking out as they please and so far I have not seen anyone wearing a mask; my neighborhood is a “walking district” and I see many young students walking by in groups.) My groceries were varied – she sent a family pack of chicken thighs. I cooked a couple and froze the rest, now I’ll hunt for recipes and cook 2 at a time. I am eating my cheese sparingly. In the mornings I used to eat a piece of toast with goat cheese spread, and am almost out apart from a small 3” goat cheese log. I’ll try to somehow reproduce the spread by mixing it with cream cheese. I made some corned beef and vegetable and had a lot of broth left. I soaked some black eyed peas then made a stew with the broth and everything I could find (onion, garlic, green pepper, carrot, potatoes, tomatoes with chili, cauliflower and bunches of spices.) It is good but it made 12 servings! So I’m going to eat that for a while … and a while longer.

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  7. I’m so grateful for these truckers and delivery people. I hope they are well taken care of by their employers.

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  8. Interesting post. I love the Panama Canal photo! We have had shortages in the stores for a month now. And since we are avoiding crowds, we placed an online order with our local supermarket a week ago. Today it was ready and we picked it up. Less than half are order was there; the rest is out of stock. Their computer system should have told us that ahead of time so we could have added substitutes. Now I need to go to the store to get the rest of what we need. It is frustrating.

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