The Pain Point of Transition – and How We Build our Business Around Easing Pain Points

Twice a year Western growers go through a moving of their facilities, operation, and team hundreds of miles away so that they can be in growing regions that support the temperature and environmental needs of many of our produce items. As you can imagine, this is a stressful time, for the growers and operators, but also for their customers. Some handle transition better than others and often we have seen it is small to mid-size buyers that bear the brunt of transition stress and are shorted on their orders. This is certainly a pain point in the industry!

The Market gets Cranky

Because growers and operators need to shut down for a few days to move their equipment, people, and operations, part of their move process is to get ahead on supply. However, there are limits to what can be stored ahead and so supply becomes more scare and market prices climb. Also, as supply becomes scarce, some customers end up shorted on orders.

Need Alternate Suppliers for Sourcing

This is where it is important to build redundancy into our produce purchasing. If one grower shorts you, then you have another that can fill in the gaps. The key to this is building great relationships throughout the year and not just when transition hits and the market gets tight. Also, you can look to partner with a team, like ours, to help with sourcing during market fluctuations. We maintain relationships with a large network of growers, and we are always happy to help with any type of sourcing or supply woes.

Increased Need for LTL

Another bottleneck you may notice during produce transition is a shortage on trucks. It seems any stress in the market, which transition certainly adds, has a trickle-down effect in the fresh supply chain. Also many growers offer cross-dock services, but in the week they are transitioning, that resource may not be readily available. This is where we see a great benefit with consolidation, so that your loads are going out of a warehouse facility and not the warehouse facility of a grower.

Who can Keep Operating when Others are Struggling

A consolidation facility also transitions, but one of the key differences is that we are not moving processing equipment like you see with produce growers. Also, consolidation warehouses are not distracted with the planting / harvesting sides of transition. This allows more continuity of logistics services. There are some specific advantages that a consolidator brings in transition:

• Ability to move LTL loads – If you are shorted on supply and source it elsewhere, you still need to move it, and often that will be a partial load
• Starting a truck in the new region – As one growing region closes, the other opens. Instead of shipping your produce from the closing season, there can be advantage in shipping from the opening one. Consolidators have that flexibility because their cooler is already operational as the rest of the industry is moving into theirs.

We are Made for Transition

Our goal is to make transition less painful for the industry, so if you are feeling the stress, call us today!