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50 DC VELOCITY FEBRUARY 2020
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grocery stores and online channels,
the research firm says.
Investment and consolidation in
the industry is also accelerating, as
shown by recent moves like Lineage
Logistics’ acquisition of Preferred
Freezer Services and Emergent Cold,
Americold Realty Trust’s acqui-
sition of Cloverleaf Cold Storage,
Ahold Delhaize USA’s announce-
ment of plans to spend $480 million
to transform its U.S. supply chain
operations over the next three years,
and Crowley Logistics’ addition of
300 refrigerated cargo containers to
its fleet.
SOME COOL CHALLENGES
As volume ramps up, cold chain practitioners are seeking tools that provide
more detailed visibility into what’s happening in their supply chain, according
to Greg Bryan, executive vice president
of Lineage Logistics, a Novi, Michigan-based refrigerated warehousing and
logistics company that operates more
than 200 warehouses across the U.S.
and manages more than $250 million of
freight globally in its network.
In comparison with nonrefrigerat-ed—or ambient—trucking fleets, temperature-controlled transportation offers
added challenges, Bryan says. For example, operators are sometimes required
to pre-cool a trailer before loading the
goods inside.
“The temperature-controlled side of
the business is more challenging, espe-
cially if you’re making multiple stops,
going from location A to B to C,” Bryan
says. “Let’s say you stop at point B and
open the trailer. Then warm air hits the
load, so you need to make sure [the load-
ing crew is] ready to move the product,
because all you’re doing is moving hot air
into the trailer.”
Adding more financial pressure, many
businesses have instituted significant
fines for cold chain products that are
not delivered on time, charging as much
as 3% to 4% of the invoice price. That
penalty could be significant when you
consider that high-value products like
fish and seafood frequently generate load
values of well over $100,000 per truck,
Bryan says.
CURRENT TECHNOLOGY FALLS
SHORT
Despite the need for precision, obtaining
the required visibility can be a challenge
for the fleets that typically serve the
cold chain sector. The average-sized fleet
in the temperature-controlled business
consists of about 20 trucks, whereas fleets
on the “dry” side can boast up to 200
trucks, Bryan says. In those smaller fleets,
a driver’s data visibility is often delivered
through nothing more than a cellphone,
as opposed to the sophisticated telematics systems used by larger fleets with
greater resources.
