Before the Covid pandemic, Americans rarely thought about supply chain or where anything they buy comes from. If you wanted something, you went to Target, Walmart, or your regional supermarket chain and purchased it.
Sure, there were product shortages, but those were generally reserved for hot Christmas items or other crazes. You might not be able to get the Beanie Baby you want, but you could always buy all the everyday items you needed.
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Then, stores began running out of toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, and other Covid-era requirements. Americans, as you might imagine, handled this by being respectful of their fellow citizens, only taking what they needed, and sharing when they had extra,
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Actually, as you remember, that’s mostly not what happened. Many people began hoarding toilet paper and other items while also sorts of scams popped up online to take advantage of people. It was a dark period that did teach Americans that their food, consumables, and other items were actually made somewhere.
Increase the demand for at-home toilet paper while lessening the need for the office variety and shortages will ensue while manufacturers make changes. Add in the generally terrible instincts of many people, and the situation will be even worse.Â
Freight farming does not look like your classic farm.
Image source: Shutterstock
Another major disruption hits supply chain Â
Freight Farms had a very noble mission. It helped bring shipping container based farming to places where it was otherwise hard, or impossible to grow fresh food.
“Here at Freight Farms, we believe that healthy food is a right, not a luxury. For this reason, we are dedicated to making fresh food accessible to anyone, anywhere, any time with a complete platform of products and services…to empower our global community of partners. With this global infrastructure, we aim to revolutionize local access to food for a more sustainable future — not just in terms of the environment, but by also making communities more resilient and secure,” it shared on its website.
The company has been successful in spreading its mission and gaining customers.
“We have Freight Farmers around the world: snowy Canadian wildernesses, Middle Eastern deserts, concrete urban jungles, and everything in between. While our Freight Farmers have different backgrounds, they all want to shorten the distance that food travels from farm to table. Our farmers rely on container farms as a source of high-quality and sustainable produce, 365 days a year,” it added.
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Those farmers are all now left with major problems as Freight Farms has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts. The company filed on April 30, starting a liquidation process that will be overseen by a court-appointed trustee.
Freight Farms bankruptcy, closure causes problems
Freight Farms customers have been concerned about the state of the company for week. It confirmed their worst fears in an email first published by Hortidaily.com.
“Freight Farms is ceasing operations as of Wednesday, April 30,” the company wrote. “Serving you over these last 13 years has been our deepest honor.”
That’s a frightening lack of information for a shutdown that impacts the software which runs many large freight container farms. The email spelled out some of what will happen.
Cloud-based services may no longer be available, including remote control, monitoring, alerts, and historical data. We are no longer able to fulfill farm supplies and consumables.”Technical Support and Replacement Parts: The Freight Farms Customer Experience (CX) team will not be available.Training tools and community platforms are shut down.
Farms can still be operated manually and it remains possible that another company purchases some (or all) of Freight Farms assets in order to resume some serviced.
The email made it clear that the next step for customers would be hearing from a court-appointed trustee.
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