This fireside chat recap is from Day 2 of FreightWaves’ Future of Supply Chain live event in Rogers, Arkansas. For more information and content from the event, click here.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Food supply chains in an era of disruption
DETAILS: The war in Ukraine, inflation and a freight market downturn. They’re just some of the disruptions affecting the food supply chain. What does it all mean?
SPEAKERS: Greg Price, co-founder and CEO of Shipwell, and Rachel Premack, editorial director, FreightWaves
BIO: Price co-founded Shipwell with a fellow graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016. The company provides a cloud-based shipping platform that includes a transportation management system, real-time visibility and a carrier network. He previously worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co, focusing on supply chain issues. He spent seven years working at MIT’s Lincoln Labs, where he created hardware, software and algorithms for the U.S. Department of Defense.
KEY QUOTES FROM PRICE
“A lot of people don’t realize that Russia is one of the largest exporters of different types of … ingredients that go into fertilizer, and so that changes the world’s food supply. Interest rates have increased. We’ve seen the economics change for what people are planting. So we’re going to be in for a pretty interesting market over the next, let’s say, two or three quarters, when we see the ramifications of these hit home.”
“What people need to realize in this market more than anything is that we’re in a cycle and your relationship matters, on the upside as well as the downside. And those that are invested in their relationships — kept that strong through both — have not seen an interruption.”
“I do think this is a time when those carriers are gonna get even bigger. You’re going to see a lot of these smaller carriers lose their assets because simply they find they can’t plan at the same scale.”