Here at Able Freight, we love technology. Call us nerds, but we get super excited that consumers can order cold or frozen products from almost anywhere in the world, and get them in a matter of days. How exciting is that? When someone goes to the grocery store, he might pick out produce from another country, or another continent, without batting an eyelash. Even twenty years ago, that would have been unheard of in many cases!

Of course, technology never stops evolving. There’s always a new kink to be worked out or a new means of improving efficiency. These days it’s all about the warehouse. In a time when inventory ratios are on the evening news (see, we told you supply chain is exciting!) there’s more runway than ever for innovation. Here are a few of our favorite new, and upgraded cold chain technologies:

Robotics - Robots have gotten a lot of media exposure for their role in grocer’s micro fulfillment centers, but their benefits extend to warehouses of all sizes. The gains from robotics technology are myriad - faster operations, less human contact with potentially delicate products, a smaller margin of error. Within the cold chain, they can do jobs that are uncomfortable or unsafe for humans. Some providers are even utilizing robots as a social distancing aid! The future is here, and it involves robots working in concert with people.

Internet of Things - We’ve talked about this before. While the Internet of Things isn’t exactly a new technology, you can expect to see its wider adoption across the supply chain. We’ve learned that hooking everything up to the internet yields gains in visibility, efficiency, and most importantly for our purposes, cold chain monitoring! The technology can help pinpoint temperature fluctuations so that workers can address a problem as soon as possible (instead, of, say, finding out that a crate of vegetables is rotted after it reaches its destination.)

AI and Machine Learning - This is probably stating the obvious, but we’re going to go ahead and say it anyway. When you move and store a lot of products, you’re going to end up with a LOT of data. Better put it to good use!

Before 2020, cold chain providers were already starting to extract valuable insights from the piles of information that they had been gathering. And then, you guessed it, the ensuing chaos accelerated the timeline. Applying artificial intelligence to the supply can help identify weak spots and create better forecasts. Overall, bringing a more robust cold chain to a world that desperately needs it right now.

Visibility Platforms - We’re ahead of the curve on this one. The other categories that we’ve called out all got a big push from the pandemic, and the same applies here. Gartner predicts that by 2023, 50% of shippers will have invested in visibility technologies. Whether you’re shipping to a business or a consumer, your customer wants to know where their order is at all times. Luckily, this is a concept that we’ve been working on for years. Our in-house visibility product, DataHub will let you know where your goods are with one click of a button. Even during non-business hours (gasp!).

These are a few of our favorites. What technology are you most excited about? What do you think is the biggest gap that needs to be filled? We’d love to hear from you. Email us: tech@ablefreight.com

Able Freight is proud to announce that it has joined the Air France KLM Martinair Cargo (AFKLMP) Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) programme. As of June 2021, Able Freight has started using sustainable aviation fuel on a selection of available flight paths.

SAF is a jet fuel made from renewable sources such as cooking oil and a sustainable alternative to fossil fuel that reduces carbon emissions by a minimum of 75%. Blended with conventional fossil fuel all aircraft engine types can use it.

Able Freight CEO Orlando Wong says: “We are committed to becoming more carbon-efficient as a company and industry. By utilizing SAF, our company will lower its carbon emissions for the selected lanes by up to 52%”.

The SAF programme utilizes low-carbon airfreight lanes in between North America and Europe. In a first for the industry, AFKLMP partners can choose to operate flights with a percentage of sustainable fuel, at a level of their choosing. Joost van Imhoff Commercial Director for AFKLMP the Americas says: “We are extremely pleased in welcoming Able Freight to our Programme. On top of reducing their CO2 emissions, the participation of Able Freight helps in building a more sustainable airfreight industry as a whole. Through these kinds of concrete commitments, we can lead the industry towards a more sustainable future, together”.

In joining the programme, 100% of the investment made by AFKLMP partners is used in sourcing SAF. Participants receive an annual audited sustainability report, explaining the level of carbon reduction as the result of their expenditure.

“Able Freight is invested in a sustainable future for the cold chain. We are excited to partner with AFKLMP and look forward to investing in air freight’s cleaner future and meaningful technologies”, adds Dr. Michael Kronenberg, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer at Able Freight.

Can you believe we’re already halfway through 2021? At our office, it's equally hard to fathom being six months away from 2022 and to comprehend the level of distortion and growth in the transportation market. One year after lockdowns maxed out and the logistics industry is still working overtime to mop up that mess. Ports are clogged, equipment and space is hard to come by, and you, dear exporter and importer, are probably paying through the nose for service.

It’s a perfectly crafted shipper’s nightmare. But instead of being back in high school and having to take a test or give a speech, this time the forces of nature and the marketplace are conspiring to keep importers and exporters from doing their jobs.

Where do we begin? A logical place to start might be e-commerce. Online sales rose 44% last year, tripling the previous year’s growth. But even with the coronavirus receding, the appetite for internet shopping has not. eMarketer predicts that e-commerce is going to grow by 14% this year, to a whopping $909 billion in sales.

As you’re probably painfully aware, shipping all of that retail doesn’t come without a cost. And we’re not even talking about the cost of your sanity as you try to import perishables while dealing with Peleton bikes, ugly sweaters, gardening equipment, and whatever else is clogging up transportation right now. With online retail gearing up to join the four comma club, it’s squeezing capacity at ports in a major way, and sending rates through the ceiling. Check out this aggregation of ocean rates to see what we’re talking about. It’s like a rollercoaster, only instead of the fun drop, it just keeps going up.

Ocean carriers have become such a hot item that it’s shifting cargo to airfreight that otherwise wouldn’t be (think: perishable products). So even if you aren’t personally moving inventory and produce on an ocean vessel, we’d be surprised if you aren’t feeling the squeeze.

But let’s say that you aren’t having trouble moving your wares. You’ve found the Southwest summer sale type deal, and a carrier who is happy to honor it. That’s a great first step, but it’s not the end of the story. Alas, moving freight this summer is akin to playing Jumanji.

Next up, there’s the trucking market. Not only is it tighter than in 2018, but we’re in the middle of a mega driver shortage (it could reach 160,000 this decade, according to the American Trucking Association). We like this subheader: “Fleets Enjoying Historically Strong Business Conditions.” At least somebody is enjoying it?

And, as you probably know, peak season is lurking around the corner. Will the market get even tighter? Has it maxed out yet? Only time will tell. Mark Twain once said, “Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.” That probably sums up how most shippers feel these days.

We wish we could snap our fingers and solve these problems overnight. Short of that, what we can do is recommend that you find a logistics partner who is ready to be a long-term partner and sees you as more than a budget item. Hopefully that’s your experience already. If it isn’t, that’s how we think, in value-adding long-term partnerships to go through times like these, together and successfully.

Are you ready for Able Freight? Contact us +1 (310) 568-8883 or sales@ablefreight.com

It’s 2021, and visibility in shipping is more important than ever. After a year of lockdowns, consumers have adapted to making a few more (ok, a lot more) purchases online. They’ve also grown accustomed to seeing where those packages are at all times in the delivery process. You know how everyone talks about the ‘new normal’? Well, for shippers, accommodating the desire for shipment visibility is the new normal. Welcome to the future.

You probably don’t need us to tell you that customers want status updates. Amazon made fast, visible shipping the norm. And the shipping disruptions resulting from Covid only accelerated consumer preferences for transparency. But as a shipper, you can benefit from them as well. No matter how much you may like surprises in your personal life, you probably don’t want to deal with too many of them professionally.

Technology has given us the capability to ship items that we would not have thought possible 100 years ago. It was high time that someone built a visibility tool to keep up with it.

Enter DataHub, Able Freight’s platform for all things visibility-related. Want to see where your medicinals are on their route? Curious whether the produce you shipped made it to the warehouse? Need to check a form, quality photos, or temperature readings? Real-time flight statuses? We’ve got you covered.

DataHub keeps all of this information in one place. It’s a multimodal, real-time cargo tracking, communication and visibility platform, and customer portal. Using this technology, shippers can track shipments directly from a desktop or handheld device. Managers can access inventory reports, air waybills, bill of lading, and even pictures at any time. Or they can set up email and text notifications and let updates come to them.

Dr. Michael Kronenberg, CSO and CTO of Able Freight, explains: “In short, DataHub is a one-stop-shop for all things shipping-related when you do business with Able Freight. A strategic tool that demonstrates our company’s vision to be a leader in technology-driven logistics services in the cold chain industry.”

“DataHub is a centralized place where you can see all your information and documents, instead of trying to chase it down from different sources. We keep it all in one place, available for you 24/7,” says Oscar Cruz, project manager at Able Freight. “Shipment visibility is so important,” adds Min Park, Able Freight’s business intelligence analyst. “When you ship via air freight, there is this high-speed environment with a ton of paperwork involved. The more we can automate and integrate data flows, the more e verybody benefits, from the shipper to the consignee and our vendors.”

With everybody giving consumers the status update red carpet treatment, we thought that shippers and consignees deserved the same.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to explain a lot more of DataHub's features and capabilities. Get ready to learn what’s possible for temperature tracking, incident reporting, automated reports, APIs and so much more.

- Your DataHub team

Change is coming to Able Freight. Environmental change, that is. Supply chains are responsible for a considerable proportion of environmental damage (some estimates put it at 90%!). We know we have to do and will do something about this.

So we did. This spring, Able Freight rolled out several new initiatives to reduce our footprint. These employee and community-level changes are based on the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Just a few items that we are researching include electric fleet usage, digitizing our operations (no need to use all that paper), and expanding our recycling program. But one thing that we might be most excited about is our zero plastics initiative. We call it Plastic Free ’23, because we plan to be free of single use and consumable plastics by December 31, 2023.

As an example. Ocean Conservancy, a non-profit whose mission is to protect oceans from environmental damage, estimates that 8 million metric tons of plastics enter the ocean each year, on top of the 150 million metric tons of trash that already circulates through the waters. And this is assuming that plastic consumption doesn’t increase. Sadly, we know that it will, unless we choose to do something now. Volunteer ocean cleanup events address some of these problems, but they aren’t enough on their own. Nobody can reach plastic that has already made its way to the middle of the Pacific. What we need to focus on is reducing our plastic usage. Addressing the problem from the root, so that straws and shopping bags don’t end up in the stomach of a seal.

Here’s how we’re doing that. In the office, we’ve eliminated disposable cutlery, saving nearly 50,000 single-use utensils from ending up in a landfill or the ocean. We’re doing away with plastic canisters and other items that are hard to recycle. If it can’t be efficiently reused, we’re finding an alternative. We’re taking things even further in our warehouses. This spring, we tested out new adhesive materials. We’re trying out a recyclable alternative to metal bubble wrap. Our approach is not only going to help us be more efficient but lower the impact that Able Freight will have on the planet.

We expect testing to conclude in Q2 2021. Two years and seven months to go and then Able Freight expects to be free of consumable plastics.

Your Able Freight Team

sales@ablefreight.com

Follow us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/able-freight/

On March 5, an article ran in CNBC titled, ‘Retailers pay more to fly everything from bikes to hot tubs from China as U.S. port backup delays deliveries’. In any other year, that might have sounded like an April Fool’s Day joke headline. But not in 2021.

One quarter into the year and carriers are still mopping up the mess from 2020. Ports are clogged, rates are high, and transit time is way up. Then comes the Suez canal traffic jam. The market is distorted, and one of the ways that’s playing out is an unusual shift towards air freight.

We know how it usually goes. Airfreight is used for high-value, time-sensitive items, like pharmaceuticals. Ocean freight gets tapped for everything else.

But that was before an import surge, spurred by a global shutdown and reopening, coupled with a pandemic caused mayhem at ports around the world. Now, ocean transport times are climbing (some reports put it as high as 75 days, up from one month). Roughly 30 ships have been waiting outside of the San Pedro Bay since the start of the year (though the ports of LA and Long Beach are far from the only ones feeling the crunch.)

That just isn’t feasible for companies who are racing to get their products into consumers’ hands. A well-known example is Peloton - at the end of 2020, a ship carrying 197 containers of bikes spent twelve days waiting to dock. The company lost millions, blaming it on problems with the supply chain. Shipping delays are becoming more costly than some companies can bear.

Meanwhile, air cargo capacity is up while prices are falling. As Capt. Adil Ashiq, executive of MarineTraffic’s U.S. western region told CNBC, ‘The price of a 250-kilogram air shipment traveling from China to the U.S. has dropped from about 60% of the cost of a full container to around 36%.’

The situation puts decision-makers in an interesting position. Between shorter transit time, smaller price differentials, and added capacity, air freight is becoming a viable option for some shippers. Given a choice between waiting up to three months for a delivery or paying some extra, certain shippers are choosing the faster option.

'If you want to ship a hot tub via ocean from Shanghai to New York, that will cost you around $1,000 for the transportation for a lighter hot tub, but it will take a minimum of 35 to 45 days, Seko Logistics Chief Growth Officer Brian Bourke told CNBC. Bourke says that the same shipment via air could cost $2,000 or $3,000, depending on weight. ‘But it will only take you three to four days to get your hot tub,’ he explained. ‘[p]aying two to three times will save you four to seven weeks right now. Ultimately the math makes sense for certain shippers right now.’

This probably won’t last forever. Fuel prices may be rising, and eventually, it will be less profitable to fly. Port congestion will clear, and consumption patterns will return to normal. But until then, for shippers who need it, the math works out. Experts expect a certain portion of goods to keep going by airfreight moving forward as long as the industry can provide competitive rates, speed, and high service levels...