Freightcasts Weekly Recap (10/26-11/1)

WHAT THE TRUCK?!?

• A Freightmare on Elm Street
  • Dooner and The Dude are taking you into Halloween weekend with a roundup on freight’s most diabolical variety show.  
  • Tom Curee crushes it with an original #PlayItForward live tune, Salesforce talks about seamless driver onboarding, Opendock explains why a warehouse would want to move to dock scheduling and Josue Ramos inspires us with insight on Mexican-American entrepreneurship in trucking.
  • Plus, good news/bad news concerning a kitten stuck to a semi, forced monkey labor and panther petting zoos.
  • This episode features Bob Hitt, Salesforce’s North American lead for the transportation and logistics Industry; Bob La Loggia, CEO of Opendock; Tom Curee, SVP of strategy and innovation for Kingsgate Logistics; and Josue Ramos, general manager of J and R Trucking.
• Is it freight’s witching hour?
  • Dooner and The Dude are talking about if now is the time to sell your trucking company, the verdict in an embezzlement bust, the scary state of air freight, recruiting hacks and the Wheel of Stupid Questions with a freight-tech founder. 
  • Plus, how lasers are targeting tailgating truckers, will mall Santas get a vaccine, top Halloween candy by state and glitter bans. 
  • This episode features Bryan Schreiber, manager of air cargo business development for the Columbus Regional Airport Authority; Ryan Schreiber, director of engagement (or equivalent) at CarrierDirect; Jeff Boswell, recruiter for Universal Capacity Solutions at Universal Logistics Holdings Inc.; and Alyssa Myers, director of product management at XPO.

On The Spot

• Operators adjust to tight market conditions
  • Zach Strickland and JP Hampstead discuss the current state of freight markets and how shippers, carriers and intermodal providers are responding to capacity constraints.

Midday Market Update

• Shippers say transaction data ‘none of the carrier’s business’
  • On the Midday Market Update presented by Amazon Freight, Michael Vincent and Kevin Hill talk about the SONAR-powered data, issues and news that moves you.
  • This episode features Lori Ann LaRocco, senior editor of guests for Business News, CNBC; Greg Miller, senior editor at FreightWaves; FreightWaves market experts Andrew Cox, Anthony Smith and Zach Strickland; and FreightWaves’ Nick Austin with weather.
• Rise of white-glove delivery
  • Michael Vincent and Andrew Cox talk about the SONAR-powered data, issues and news that moves you. 
  • This episode features Chris Richter, founder and CEO of FloorFound; Laurence Alvarado, co-founder and CEO of WARECAP; and FreightWaves market experts Andrew Cox and Anthony Smith, with Nick Austin on weather.

Fuller Speed Ahead

• Transplace CEO Frank McGuigan
  • FreightWaves founder and CEO Craig Fuller sits down with Transplace CEO Frank McGuigan.

Freightonomics

• How do presidential elections impact the economy and transportation?
  • Anthony and Zach discuss the increasing concerns over the driver shortage and how presidential elections influence the economy.

Great Quarter, Guys

• Is it time to raise driver wages?
  • Andrew and Seth break down their recent paper on driver wage inflation and the impact of wage growth to capacity and to trucking stock prices.

FreightWaves LIVE

• Ag exporters grapple with COVID, trade war, political unknowns — Cold Chain Summit
  • It’s a recipe for trouble: COVID disruptions are pulling refrigerated containers away from food production areas. Twice this year, outbreaks stymied U.S. food shipments to China. Tariffs are still taking a bite out of ag sales. Trade tensions with China remain high. Trade negotiations with the EU are intensifying. And the presidential election could reset the entire equation.
  • To put the myriad issues faced by U.S. food exporters in perspective, FreightWaves’ Greg Miller interviewed Washington-based Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, during the Cold Chain Summit.
• Beyond Meat and the impacts on supply chain networks — Cold Chain Summit
  • John Brewer, director of distribution and logistics for CKE Restaurants, has been in the food distribution business for close to two and a half decades, a span that included 9/11 among other natural and human-caused disasters. But the impact of COVID-19 on the supply chain was an entirely new experience for him, as refrigerated capacity tightened and reefer tender rejection rates shot to new heights.
  • “I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire career,” said Brewer during the FreightWaves Cold Chain Summit.
  • CKE is the parent company for fast food chains Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. In his role, Brewer manages distribution and logistics for all 50 states, a position that includes distribution centers, redistributors, carriers, final-mile delivery “and anything else that crops up at the moment,” he said.
  • CKE operates 3,000 stores coast to coast and in Alaska and Hawaii. Brewer’s team delivers to each of those stores at least once a week and the majority at least twice a week.
• Current trends in cold storage real estate — Cold Chain Summit
  • Building speculative space in traditional industrial warehousing has been a long-standing market segment, but it’s relatively new in the cold storage world and both real estate developers and design-build companies are positioning to take advantage.
  • “I will tell you that the amount of interest from developers and other investors – even developers that were in something other than industrial real estate – [they] see the allure of cold storage and want to get in and build spec freezer/cooler buildings,” said David Sours, senior vice president for CBRE Food Facilities Group, part of commercial real estate giant CBRE, during a fireside chat as part of the FreightWaves Cold Chain Summit.
• Inside the four walls of cold chain mobility — Cold Chain Summit
  • The cold chain logistics industry is a tough environment in which success requires selecting the right equipment while keeping costs in line, according to industry professionals.
  • “Of all the different manufacturers and transportation logistics companies and wholesale distributors that we work with, the cold chain is certainly one of the most challenging environments from an equipment standpoint,” said Tim Wills, chief marketing officer at Peak-Ryzex Inc.
  • Wills was part of a fireside chat with Larry Klimczyk, president of the Americas region at FarEye, during the FreightWaves Cold Chain Summit.
• Penske Logistics focuses on excellence in refrigerated transportation — Cold Chain Summit
  • As the temperature-controlled supply chain continues to call for greater transparency to ensure food quality and safety, Penske Logistics welcomed the opportunity to ensure its cold chain operations were the gold star in the industry.
  • Penske Logistics’ Jeff Jackson, senior vice president of operations – dedicated contract carriage, shared his insight on how his company earned the first-of-its-kind cold chain certification that focuses on excellence in refrigerated transportation with George Abernathy, president of FreightWaves, in a virtual talk at the FreightWaves Cold Chain Summit.
• Technology in action: SkyBitz, Coretex team up for unified reefer solution — Cold Chain Summit
  • Refrigerated shippers and their carrier partners have been under increasing pressure in recent years due to new regulations centered on ensuring safe and sanitary delivery of temperature-controlled products.
  • SkyBitz has announced a partnership with Coretex, which provides sensor-based refrigerated solutions. The sensors, combined with Coretex’s cloud-based platform, will work in conjunction with SkyBitz’s trailer-tracking technology, giving pharmaceutical and retail customers visibility into where their trailers are located and the condition of temperature-controlled loads.
  • Terri Lucas, vice president of sales for SkyBitz, and Craig Marris, president of Coretex, discussed the new partnership and combined solution during FreightWaves’ Cold Chain Summit virtual conference. Both SkyBitz and Coretex are regional sponsors of the event.

FreightWaves Morning Minute

• Monday-Friday
  • The fastest minute in freight.
  • The top headlines from FreightWaves.com every weekday morning. Available on FreightWaves.com/podcasts, your favorite podcasts player and Alexa by adding the skill “FreightWaves.”