INBOUND
Here’s our monthly roundup of someof the charitable works and donationsby companies in the material handlingand logistics space. This month, we’rehighlighting initiatives to support theCovid- 19 relief efforts.
; Third-party logistics company C.H.Robinson donated $50,000 to the St.Christopher Truckers Relief Fund(SCF) to support the truck driver community during the crisis. Donations tothe SCF help provide financial assistance to ill or injured truck operatorsas well as fund health and wellnessprograms for drivers.
; Freight-matching technology provider Next Trucking has donated 3,000masks to the Port of Long Beach andPort of Los Angeles. The masks will bedistributed to local hospitals, police stations, and port workers in the LA area.
; Rakuten Super Logistics, a company that specializes in e-commerceorder fulfillment and freight brokerage,is partnering with beverage companyDefy to distribute over 25,000 donatedbottles of Defy’s performance drinks tofirst responders and the hunger-reliefgroup Feeding America.
; Fleet Advantage, a company specializing in truck fleet business analyticsand equipment financing, has donated $10,000 to the First RespondersChildren’s Foundation to support itspandemic-related emergency responseefforts.
; Battery and electric vehicle manufacturer BYD will donate $1 millionin medical supplies, including personalprotective equipment and hand sanitizer, to transit agencies and first responders in the U.S. and Canada.
; Freight-matching marketplacetruckstop.com gave trucking companies free access to its premium servicesfor the month of April, to help carriersfind freight, get home, and connectwith the brokerage community duringcoronavirus travel bans and workclosures. ;
Logistics gives back Someone to watch over me
Millions of Americans have been working from home since the coronavirus lockdowns began, but that’s not to say they’re working unobserved.According to published reports, demand for staff-monitoring services hassurged since the beginning of March.
But how do these remote monitoring services work and what dothey cost? New York-based information technology provider Atlas VPNrecently conducted a survey of six popular platforms (Hubstaff, Workpuls,DeskTime, ActivTrak, EmpMonitor,The study apparently raised some concerns among Atlas VPN leaders.“Managers should look for better ways to ensure their employees are productive while maintaining respect for their privacy,” Rachel Welsh, COOof Atlas VPN, said in a release. “Some of the features these services include,such as keystroke monitoring, are too invasive. Not to mention, resultsfrom these systems show [they] are not always accurate—employers shouldnever fully rely on automatically generated reports.” ;Business shutdowns and travel bans brought wide swaths of the economyto a shuddering halt during the Covid- 19 pandemic, but certain sectorsare doing just fine.
Take the peanut business, for instance.Although peanut sales were already trendingup before the pandemic, the Covid- 19 crisishas led to a spike in domestic peanut butter demand as Americans turn to “the ultimate comfort food,” according to StephanieGrunenfelder, senior vice president of the American Peanut Council.
And it’s not just a domestic phenomenon. Peanut exports are also seeing double-digit growth, according to Georgia’s Port of Savannah. In aMay blog post, the port reported that for the fiscal year through March, ithandled 10,947 twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs) of exportpeanuts, an increase of 3,724 TEUs, or 51.6%, over the previous year. Thetop markets for U.S.-grown peanuts are Canada, the European union,Mexico, and China, the port said.
As for where those nuts are grown, Georgia continues to be theleading peanut-producing state, accounting for more than 50% of thenation’s product, according to the American Peanut Council. The U.S.Department of Agriculture projects Georgia farmers will plant 740,000acres of the crunchy legume this year, a 10% increase over 2019. ;
Sometimes you feel like a nut
