That small package of bright red strawberries you hold in your hands at the grocery store made quite a journey to get there. Same with those bags of spinach, or any other produce you might pick up.
Their journey starts at 5:30 in the morning as harvesters pick produce from tightly packed rows. Collected in trucks, that produce gets sent to a cooling system for preservation, where it’s packed, sealed, loaded onto trucks, and sent to the grocery stores, explained Anthony Cochiolo, Bonipak Produce Company transportation operations manager.
“I hope people realize that everything they have somehow got to them on a truck. Everything you wear, everything you eat: We are built on wheels,” Cochiolo said.
Santa Maria-based Bonipak Packing Company has packed and shipped produce to local grocery stores since 1932. Now, packing and shipping companies like Bonipak face challenges because of a truck driver shortage, a supplies shortage, and an increase in costs.
“We’ve always had shortages but never to this extent. Pallets are a shortage, cardboard is a shortage, and trucks are a shortage,” Cochiolo said.
Bonipak wanted to expand its shipping capabilities by buying more trucks to ship produce but found that trucking companies didn’t have trucks available, either.
“It’s all supply chain, resources are being compromised,” he said.
Like dominoes, the supply shortage’s impact was knocked down to companies like Bonipak, which ultimately affects the company’s bottom line, Cochiolo said.
“People are going to see an uptick in [prices] just because of what we have to overcome,” he said.
Previous shortage experiences allowed Bonipak to make smooth adjustments, but for other organizations—like Hampton’s Farming—the shortage took them by surprise. This is the first year the vineyard management company had problems with trucks not being available, said Hampton Vineyard Manager Jim Stollberg.
“I don’t think the trucking companies, wineries, or growers were prepared. It really blindsided us this year,” Stollberg said.
In previous years, Stollberg never worried about trucking. The driver was lined up a week in advance, they’d come to the vineyard, pick up the recently harvest grapes, and take them to wineries. If there were bottlenecks, more trucks were available to alleviate any strains, Stollberg recalled.
Hampton’s distributes from Santa Maria to Paso Robles, Lodi, Santa Barbara, and all the way to Napa Valley. The vineyard harvests 23 tons of grapes per truckload and harvests from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., but the truck shortage affects that process.
Now, Stollberg’s checking in with independently contracted trucking companies on a daily basis to confirm how many trucks are available for the vineyard’s shipment.
“It causes us to be less efficient, our people are having to work different hours than ideal—shorter and longer days—to fit into the trucking availability. This costs us more money and makes it difficult for some of the wineries to adjust their plans,” he said.
Truck drivers have a 10-hour driving limit per day in California, so once a truck driver reaches 10 hours, they are required by law to stop. Traffic, port delays, and loading times all add to the driver’s hours.
“It throws another wrench into the system. In the end, we’re doing everything we can to make our people as productive as possible, but it’s not easy for us to do,” Stollberg continued.
The entire country is experiencing efficiency problems with shipping in the supply chain, President of SLO and Santa Barbara County Grower-Shipper Association Claire Wineman said.
“There’s been a shared labor shortage across the economic sectors, and there’s an overall demand for shipment across multiple sectors. There’s certainly been ongoing, sustained, and intermittent challenges throughout the supply chain during COVID; everyone had supply challenges for things like toilet paper,” Wineman said.
Costs are going up for companies, she said, because shipping demand is increasing along with current California regulations, environmental protections, and food safety protections. The market structure causes the extra costs to be passed on to the grower, but not the consumer, she continued.
“Members are trying to adapt to these challenges, but at the same time, they are competing with different states and countries that operate at a fraction of the cost and company oversight,” Wineman said.
“This year has been very challenging financially for our members because prices have been low, and now there’s been increased costs for the supply chain. But it doesn’t reflect in the prices paid for the produce being grown,” she continued. “Those delays and uncertainties do create hardships and substantial economic losses.”
California’s Central Coast produces one-fourth of the nation’s food with more than 250 different crops and an estimated value of $17 billion per year—according to the United States Geological Survey—and these supply chain breakdowns result in produce loss while it waits to get loaded and unloaded at its destination, Wineman said.
The whole state is experiencing extreme delays caused by the labor shortage, with more than 200,000 containers waiting in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. In the first six months of 2021, the United States saw a 30 percent increase in import and export containers compared to last year, according to The Hill.
To respond, the Biden administration announced that the Port of Los Angeles can move its service to 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to address the bottlenecks, the article stated.
Gov. Gavin Newsom also signed an executive order to address the supply chain problems by allowing state agencies to alleviate short-term storage needs and help identify freight routes that could be temporarily exempted from vehicle weight limits, allowing them to carry more goods, the article continued.
Wineman said this issue highlights a need for changes at the policy-making level.
“The bigger picture shows the need for policies to promote domestic agriculture because it promotes jobs and job security as well as local produce,” Wineman said.
She pointed to land use policies and encouraged a balance of cultural and economic practices while keeping in mind the global competitive market and business challenges in California.
Through these challenges, Bonipak remains positive, transportation operations manager Ochiolo said. The team’s been very hands-on, using the supplies they have at the facility, and continuing to recruit new drivers.
“We are optimistic here, the company’s been around a long time, and we are trying our best to work through it,” Ochiolo said. “We want to make sure we have this industry [trucking] because it’s [vital] to our economy and our way of life, and the drivers are doing their best … .
“These guys work hard and are definitely a different breed of person,” he continued. “My hat goes [off] to both the men and women that have not backed off on any of this.”
Reach Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 28 – Nov 4, 2021.
