| Archives/Subscribe | Printer-Friendly | Send to a Friend | www.foodshippersofamerica.org | February 15, 2016 |
Due to an unexpected and overwhelming response, registration for the upcoming 2016 Food Shippers of America Conference is now closed.
We look forward to seeing everyone who has registered for this year's conference. Registration for our 2017 conference will open in July. Conference agenda click learn more Learn More... Truckload Carriers Association and The National Industrial Transportation League have joined together to update their Voluntary Guide to Good Business Relations for Shippers, Receivers, Carriers and Drivers.
Learn More... Drew Lewis, who as transportation secretary under Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s led contract negotiations with the air traffic controllers union and, when many of its members went on strike, put together a temporary system to keep planes in the air, died Wednesday in Prescott, Ariz. He was 84.
The cause was complications of pneumonia, his son Andrew Lewis IV said. Lewis, a business executive known for rescuing failing companies, achieved prominence in Pennsylvania politics by successfully managing several House and Senate campaigns for Richard Schweiker, a childhood friend. Learn More... David Kim — a 1981 graduate of Davis High School — is the new Deputy Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. Kim was appointed by President Barack Obama and U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Fox, and started in the job about a week ago.
Kim came to Davis as a first-grader in 1969. His father, Luke Kim, was the chief psychiatrist and chief of research and staff development at the California Department of Corrections’ California Medical Facility in Vacaville, and taught psychiatry at the UC Davis Medical School. His mother, Grace Kim, taught at Davis High School. Learn More... 
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (AP) — Illinois transportation planners are awaiting details of how they could use a potential multi-million windfall for the state.
A spending bill approved by Congress in late 2015 contains a clause allowing unused transportation earmarks to be dispensed to states for related work. The earmarks must be more than 10 years old and less than 10 percent of the total must have been spent or obligated. The total amount of cash available could be nearly $2.2 billion, according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' analysis of U.S. Department of Transportation data. Illinois could receive $84.7 million, which could boost the state's minimalist road work plans amid the ongoing financial crisis, the Daily Herald (http://bit.ly/1QwIc6O ) reported. Learn More... Logistics company C.H. Robinson is combining several of its offices into a larger space in Minneapolis’ North Loop neighborhood.
The 22,000-square-foot office space is located in the TractorWorks Building at 800 North Washington Ave. The company already has 5,000 square feet in the building, but would expand to fit employees from a Roseville office of Freightquote employees. C.H. Robinson purchased the Kansas City, Missouri-based company in January 2015 and has a strategy to incorporate them more closely. "Our employees love working in the North Loop with its unique lifestyle, restaurants and housing options," C.H. Robinson general manager Chris Martinson said in a statement. "This new location will allow us to invest in our current and future employees as we continue to grow our business. The new space will house approximately 100 workers in sales, operations and account management. C.H. Robinson has 1,900 workers across several Minnesota offices, including its Eden Prairie headquarters, Brooklyn Park, Rochester, St. Cloud and Sartell. Learn More... 
A year ago the Statesman editorial board came out strongly in favor of raising the gas tax in Idaho from 25 cents per gallon to as much as the Idaho Legislature could stomach — which wasn’t much, as it turned out.
The board even envisioned doubling the tax to 50 cents. Why? We need the money to fix our dilapidated roads and bridges. One of the many elephants in the many underfunded rooms in Idaho is the Transportation Department, where there is nowhere near the revenue to maintain existing infrastructure or build smart new projects that will save money and lives. Learn More... You may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but you can apparently teach a 62-year-old fast food franchise to expand its menu. On Wednesday, Burger King unleashed the news that it would roll out its first grilled hot dogs on February 23 (though it has been testing them around the U.S. since spring 2015).
Learn More... Campbell has named Greg Shewchuk the company's new senior VP-chief marketing and commercial officer of the Americas Simple Meals and Beverages division, beginning March 7.
Shewchuk was formerly global head of marketing and CMO at Mead Johnson Nutrition Company. He replaces Darren Serrao, who vacated the position at Campbell in August to become chief growth officer at ConAgra. Shewchuk has other relevant experience in the packaged food and beverage industries: He was VP of innovation for North American snacks at Mondelez/Kraft Foods and worked in senior marketing roles at Cadbury, Diageo and Unilever. He was also a media buyer and planner at Ogilvy & Mather two decades ago. Learn More... 
More drivers say they support increasing the state gas tax than they did two years ago – if they're guaranteed the money will be spent wisely on transportation projects and not diverted for other uses, according to a new AAA poll.
Drivers agreed that the state's roads, bridges and transit system needs work, and gave state highways and local roads a fair to poor ranking in the November AAA poll. Drivers and mass transit riders also said their commutes have gotten worse over the last two years. The gas tax hasn't been raised since 1988. Still, AAA officials admit it's a hard sell to increase the gas tax in a state where residents feel like they are taxed to death. Learn More... Mergon International, the Irish injection moulder, has designed and manufactured reusable plastic lidded food-use boxes for the temporary storage and transportation of fresh fish for client box supplier PPS.
The first stage required Mergon, in collaboration with Cheshire-based LBM Innovations on the boxes’ design, to assess the structural performance of the lidded boxes when subject to worst-case stacking loads. The results of the simulation analysis enabled the design to be optimized and Mergon to proceed with manufacturing the reusable fish box and lid tooling from a high impact copolymer polypropylene. The material was selected because it combines very high impact resistance at low temperatures, along with high stiffness and good flow properties. The material also has a narrow molecular weight distribution to ensure a low tendency to warp and gives good surface finish. This ensured best sealing performance for lid to tray sealing. For this application the material also required food contact approval. Learn More... VAN BUREN, Ark. — USA Truck has appointed James Craig to the newly-created position of president of strategic capacity solutions. Craig will be responsible for the company’s logistics and brokerage operations, pricing and sales, and will report to USA Truck President and CEO Randy Rogers. The appointment is effective February 15. Craig, who has more than three decades of experience in the logistics and transportation industry, joins USA Truck from Berkshire Hathaway’s BNSF Logistics, where he served as chief marketing officer since 2012.
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A $25 million judgement has been entered in Nueces County District Court against a Chicago-area trucking company and two others in a crash that severely injured two local motorcyclists, announced 18-wheeler injury attorney Billy Edwards. A Nueces County Jury had found that Dillon Transport, Inc. was 60 percent at fault in the accident because it did not properly supervise its drivers.
Learn More... This increase within the U.S. can be attributed to domestic companies struggling to grow organically and the unprecedented low finance rates, says PwC. Due to a considerable spike in megadeals (transactions valued at $1 billion or more), 2015 as a whole closed with $172.7 billion in announced deals, according to a PwC US study.
This is a major increase from the $87 billion recorded in all of 2014. "The United States was an especially attractive target for large-scale M&A with eight megadeals, totaling 41% of the overall megadeal value, said Jonathan Kletzel, U.S. transportation and logistics leader for PwC. Learn More... 5,500 people entered the chip maker's "Crash the Second Screen" competition.
Three Dorito fans turned tweets into cold, hard cash during the chip brand’s Crash the Second Screen competition held this year during the Super Bowl. The 2016 Super Bowl was the last year Doritos held its decade-old competition "Crash the Super Bowl," in which fan-submitted commercials competed, the winner to be shown during the big game. In tandem with that competition, the Frito-Lay company held a "Crash the Second Screen" competition, in which social users were encouraged to creatively tweet their love for Doritos in exchange for cash prizes. Learn More... Hutchens Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Perrigo Company PLC(NASDAQ:PRGO) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund acquired 9,700 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,403,000.
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