Valuing the supply chain – Without trucks horticulture stops
The importance of each and every link of the horticultural supply chain is most clearly evident when a link is broken.
As way of example, how many can truly say that prior to last June that they had ever really thought about how important pollination was in the horticultural supply chain? How many of us knew that each night hundreds of trucks carting live bees drive up and down our coastline to ensure we have fruit, vegetables, and nuts into the future?
With last week's collapse of trucking giant Scott’s, growers across the state (and indeed the nation) have been in damage control. The adage of without trucks, Australia stops, certainly is true in horticulture, with the added complication in this case being without refrigeration produce perishes.
For those on the front line, the last week brought about an overwhelming number of phone calls, emails and necessary conversations trying to solve complicated logistical problems. However, for those of us looking on, the last week brought about lots of questions and not many answers.
‘How could this happen and happen so quickly?’ was potentially the most common question asked, a question interestingly answered by TWU National Secretary Michael Kaine’s statement that “This is another tragedy of the untrammeled commercial power at the top of transport supply chains. Retailers are reaping the gains from razor-thin margins while operators and drivers collapse under the strain,” he said.
Others have proposed that this didn’t happen quickly nor was it caused via just one factor but was instead a combination of another perfect storm. An aging fleet during covid meant a two year wait for new trucks, and then if you could buy one the price had gone up astronomically; there was a worker shortage meaning wages were also on the rise but capacity was low; a war in Ukraine heavily impacted fuel prices; and most recently the flooding in NSW severely impacted contracts. A seriously hard time in anyone’s books.
Whilst the questions as to how this did happen remain unanswered by the company, the questions as to what impact this will now have in the supply chain have now taken centre stage.
A lack of competition and high demand automatically assumes huge price escalations in the supply chain. Someone is going to have to pay, who will it be? And how long until we return to some form of normality in transport?
