The Fleet Business Authority
Issue link: http://heavydutytrucking.epubxp.com/i/307131
MAY 2014 Trucking's Most Respected Business Report 16 HDT • MAY 2014 www.truckinginfo.com Food safety proposal could mean headaches for refrigerated carriers – Brian McLaughlin, President, PeopleNet pe T rucking's Most Res p hotline F leets that haul food products should take a proactive approach with their food service clients to ensure a smooth implementation of rules governing the transport of foods under the Food Safety Modernization Act. The FSMA empowers the Food and Drug Administration to promul- gate various rules designed to ensure the safety of the country's food supply. According to Bud Rodowick, manager fleet performance, Thermo King, the act is "the most expansive change to food safety laws since 1938" and gives sweeping new powers to the FDA. Rodowick explained that the law places the primary responsibility on food producers and processors, not carriers. It requires a rule on the transport of food and for producers to maintain a food safety plan for food, which will include information on transportation. Carriers will have responsibilities un- der the Sanitary Transportation of Food rule. That proposed rule would require those who transport food to use sanitary transportation practice and establish criteria for training and recordkeeping. The rule contains specific crite- ria for the design and maintenance of vehicles and trailers to prevent contamination during transport. It also includes measures to ensure food is not contaminated during shipping, i.e., adequate temperature controls and separation of food items from non-food items in the same load. The proposed rule also establishes procedures for exchanging information on prior cargos and temperature control between the shipper, carrier and receiver. Product-tracing rules will be estab- lished for so-called "high-risk foods." – Jim Beach, Technology Editor Keep up with the latest news each day at www.truckinginfo.com For the full interview, go to www.truckinginfo.com/mclaughlin The Conference Board's Leading Economic Index increased 0.8% in March to 100.9, the best in four months. New home starts picked up slightly in March but the 946,000 is 5.9% less than the March 2013 annual rate. Industrial production increased 0.7% after advancing 1.2% in February. Manufacturing output, which makes up 75% of industrial production, rose 0.5%. Retail sales increased in March by the biggest margin since September 2012, higher than economists expected. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment climbed to 82.6 after hitting a four-month low of 80 in March. Retail sales (Commerce Department) Manufacturing (Federal Reserve) New home starts (Commerce Department) 82.6 Q: How have things changed since PeopleNet was acquired by Trimble two years ago? A: The way that Trimble operates (they've acquired 80 businesses in recent years) is that they buy companies and they put you into a vertical. For us it was trans- portation logistics. Strategically, they really leave you alone to devise your strategy for marketing, which allows for our marketing to be closer to our customers. Q: What kinds of things might we see in the next five years? A: We have a concept we call the In- ternet of transportation things. That includes a couple of core technologies founded on having a data hub on the truck, high speed networks and access points for a web server on the truck. Big data has become a cliché, but huge data is going to be important. There's a lot of talk about analytics, but not many people are actually doing it. Telling you when a component is going to reach its end, telling you when a driver is going to have an ac- cident, I think the predictive part, rather than reacting to it, is going take off. Leading Economic Index (Conference Board) Economic Indicators B i M A Q & Green: Positive Yellow: Concern Re d: Negative Consumer Confidence (Thomson Reuters/ University of Michigan) 1.1 % 0.8 % 2.8 % 0.5 % H o t l i n e M a y . i n d d 1 6 Hotline May.indd 16 4 / 3 0 / 1 4 4 : 3 0 P M 4/30/14 4:30 PM