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)

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