New reporting says produce growers and buyers are reporting paying double, triple, or even quadruple the amount that they used to pay to truck their goods since the ELD Mandate went into effect.
Texas Produce Growers Report Sky High Freight Rates
Kurt Schuster of Texas’s Val Verde Vegetable Company told KRGV, “They tripled or even quadrupled. What would normally be a $2,000 ride turned into an $11,000 ride. One of the main drivers was actually in the big freeze that hit the U.S., but these freight rates aren’t helping at all.”
Schuster says that the increased shipping costs are causing prices on produce to go up for consumers: “This logging thing is making a three-day trip into a four-day trip. For example, avocados that are coming from Mexico, it’s a very long freight haul and because that the freight price is just going to be added onto that sticker where ever you go.”
Chicago Supermarket Marks Up Produce Trucked In From Mexico
The Chicago Tribune is also reporting today that ELDs are driving up shipping costs and, in turn, forcing grocery stores to up the costs of produce. From the article “Why a new trucking regulation is driving up the cost of produce”:
“For Pete’s Fresh Market, a 12-store grocery chain in the Chicago area, truckloads of produce from Mexico have roughly doubled in cost since the new devices were mandated — from about $2,400 for 40,000 pounds of produce to more than $5,000, said produce buyer Kenneth Moore. Pete’s has been able to absorb much of those costs, but the company’s had to mark up items like bananas and lettuce, for example, by 20 cents, Moore said.”
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