Preparations were underway and logistics on close watch late last week ahead of the storm that covered large parts of the U.S. this weekend. "It looks like in much of the I-95 corridor, all the way down from the Carolinas up north into the Massachusetts and Maine area that there's going to be quite a bit of rain with mixed ice and snow," says Bill Nardelli Jr. of Nardelli Brothers in Cedarville, New Jersey. "That's going to make things difficult going from the southeast up through to the northeast."
It is the kind of weather warning that is undoubtedly being taken seriously. "It's been 10 years since we got something pretty significant. If they're saying what we're going to get, there's no doubt that there's going to be some delays in terms of logistics, travel and perishable inventory," says Anthony Serafino, of Exp. Group in North Bergen, New Jersey.
Over in Edinburg, Texas, Jeff Brechler of Little Bear Produce says that locally, San Antonio, Houston and north will be dealing with freezing rain, sleet and snow. "Road closures and downed power lines are very much a concern," he says. "Shipments both in and out of state have been moved up in an attempt to get ahead of the bad weather. The problem will be refilling the pipeline and how quickly can trucks/product get back on the road to redeliver will be the trick."
© U.S. National Weather Service
Routes and timing
Indeed, logistics are a key issue shippers are managing. "With winter weather affecting large portions of the country, transportation timing and routing become the primary concern, particularly for both inbound product moving into our central facility and outbound shipments heading to customers across North America," says Morgan DiMartino of Consalo Family Farms/The Freshwave Fruit & Produce®.
In fact, it's not just about managing how passable the routes are for shipping product. "Typically when we see a storm of this size, there are restrictions on how trucks can operate and on these roads to really ease up for the Department of Transportation and sanitation services to clean the roads," says Serafino. "So we're telling the clientele to stock up in advance because we and others just can't guarantee delivery."
It's not just the trucks that are on watch for logistics. "The storm is also creating log jams at the port with people trying to pull as much cargo as possible these two days here," says Serafino, noting this storm comes on the same week as a bank holiday earlier in the week which closed the ports for a day.
© Consalo Family Farms/The Freshwave Fruit & Produce
Filling up ahead
Stocking up seems to be the predominant advice being doled out to clients. "Our priority has been to accelerate inbound movements wherever possible and position product at our facility ahead of any significant weather-related delays," says DiMartino, noting that its logistics team is working closely with its transportation partners to monitor conditions in real time and adjust schedules accordingly.
"Our retail partners have loaded up pretty heavily ahead of time. We moved a lot of deliveries up and we've delivered a lot of product into the warehouse in the last day or two as well as tomorrow to get ahead of things," says Nardelli Jr., adding that a of customers' warehouses already announced closures for Monday due to concerns over employees and trucks not being able to make it in.
As for demand, storms can shift the way consumers shop. "We typically see a short-term increase in retail movement ahead of major winter storms as consumers prepare by stocking up," says DiMartino. "That surge puts additional pressure on the supply chain, making proactive planning and execution especially critical during these periods. Our focus remains on keeping shelves stocked and minimizing disruption for our retail partners despite challenging conditions."
© U.S. National Weather Service
Consumers and shopping patterns
As Nardelli notes, similar to how consumers operated in the era of the pandemic, consumers often stock up ahead of a storm. "They're buying heavily and anticipating that they may not be able to get back to the store until Tuesday, depending on what area of the country they're in," he says.
As for product availability, shippers aren't anticipating the weather severely impacting any crops. "We shouldn't have any damaging weather in the southeast as far as temperatures," says Nardelli Jr. "We had some cold weather last week and then temperatures warmed up a little. We still have some cooler overnight temperatures but nothing that should be damaging. It's just going to slow down yield a little bit on harvest."
For more information:
Bill Nardelli Jr.
Nardelli Brothers
https://nardellibrosinc.com
Anthony Serafino
Exp. Group LLC
www.expgroup.us
Jeff Brechler
Little Bear Produce
www.littlebearproduce.com
Morgan DiMartino
Consalo Family Farms
www.consalofamilyfarms.com
