What? It’s Wednesday and there’s a Running on Ice newsletter? Yes, we have a special Wednesday edition because who wants to open an email on the Friday before Memorial Day? The good news is that the Wednesday edition brings you two more days to use the code RunningOnIceFSC24 to get a discount on Future of Supply Chain tickets. The promo officially ends Friday, and I don’t see us getting lucky with a double extension.
All thawed out
Big news came out of the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in Vegas this week. Isuzu Commercial Truck of America Inc. announced the development of an all-electric Isuzu NRR EV truck integrated with the Thermo King e300 all-electric transport refrigeration unit. The NRR EV is a medium-duty delivery truck with a fully electric powertrain.
Shaun Skinner, president of Isuzu Commercial Truck of America, says in a PHCP Pros article, “Our new NRR-EV has been the top conversation for the last couple of years. We knew we had a good solution for dry product delivery, but many of our customers also needed refrigerated delivery. With all of the intricacies of the powertrain and a new approach to refrigeration, this really shows the power of the Isuzu-Thermo King collaboration. For Isuzu, this is among the first Class 5 all-electric refrigerated truck offerings, and it will open new doors for us and our brand.”
Along with a reduction in emissions, the new vehicle gets rid of some parts prone to breaking or wearing down, like belt-driven compressors and refrigeration hoses, which is increasing reliability and reducing installation time.
Temperature Checks
Not wanting to miss out on the medium-duty developments, Penske Truck Leasing, Daimler Truck North America and Carrier Transicold have collaborated on an all-electric refrigerated medium-duty truck. As more temperature-controlled shippers get on the e-commerce and direct-to-consumer bandwagon, the excess demand will overflow into these temperature-controlled medium-duty vehicles just like we’ve seen on the dry van side of things.
According to a Green Car Congress article, “The new vehicle combines a Class-7 Freightliner eM2 battery-electric box truck with Carrier Transicold’s Supra e11 eCool electric refrigeration unit on a 26-foot refrigerated body. It is targeted at regional and local fleets seeking regulatory compliance or cleaner, more sustainable options for distributing food and other perishable goods.”
As more shippers focus on smaller changes throughout the supply chain to improve carbon emissions, more solutions and collaborations like this will be commonplace.
Food and Drug
Protein is everywhere. Its time in the spotlight has come as consumers are looking for unique ways to get more of the nutrient in their diets. I’m just happy people have stopped adding cottage cheese to everything. It should come as no surprise that protein hacks have invaded the ice cream world. If the nondairy and keto alternatives have taught us anything, it’s that eventually it comes back to ice cream.
Enter Protein Pints, a pint of ice cream with 30 grams of protein and 135 calories per serving or 555 calories for the entire pint if that’s more your speed. Currently there are four flavors: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and peanut butter chip. As of right now, the goods are only found in Michigan at Meijer and Love’s Ice Cream & Chocolate.
In a Michigan Farm News article, Paul Reiss, 23, a co-founder of Protein Pints, said: “We’re looking for things that were better for our health, which kind of meant we had to back off the ice cream quite a bit. We were looking for that higher protein amount, but we didn’t really like the shakes and the bars. So we really didn’t eat them, and we weren’t getting enough protein.”
Cold chain lanes
This week’s SONAR market ventures to Southern California, home of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. As they are two of the busiest ports in the U.S., what happens in SoCal is a good leading indicator of what might happen in the rest of the country. Right now there is a bit of a capacity crunch as reefer outbound tender rejections have drastically risen from 16.8% rejections on May 15 to 27% rejections on May 22, a 1,085-basis-point increase.
The sharp uptick while reefer outbound tender volumes have stayed relatively stable, only a 4.9% increase week over week, means there is strong demand in the market and there are some inflated spot rates as well. When ROTRI stays above 15%, that signals there are extremely inflated spot rates, which is a welcome relief to carriers as they stand to gain the most from these rates.
Is SONAR for you? Check it out with a demo!
Shelf life
Over 147,000 pounds of frozen pasta recalled due to allergen risk
How UPS is leading the charge in healthcare logistics
Alpine Food Distributing to renovate Vernon cold-storage facility
Borderlands Mexico: Mexican ports’ container volumes up 18% in first 4 months of 2024
EV startup Harbinger snags $400M in commercial vehicle chassis orders
Wanna chat in the cooler? Shoot me an email with comments, questions or story ideas at moconnell@freightwaves.com.
See you on the internet.
Mary
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