BITE SIZED SUPPLY CHAIN/LOGISTICS INFORMATION Info SNACKS
PEST CASE SCENARIO
GRAYSCALE Calbee, Japan’s largest snack maker, has lost its color. The company recently announced that more than a dozen of its products will now ship in black-and-white packaging, a direct result of the ongoing naphtha shortage across the region.
The USDA opened a sterile fly breeding facility in Texas, representing its first domestic line of defense against a livestock parasite that is moving north from Central America at a moment when the U.S. beef supply has little room for additional strain. Cattle herds are at a 75-year low, imports from Mexico have been banned since mid-2025, and ground beef is running around $6.80 per pound. The New World screwworm was eradicated from the United States in the 1960s by releasing millions of sterile male flies into the wild. The new facility will rely on that same methodology.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has constricted access to the petrochemical, a base component of printing ink. Despite the monochrome redesign, the chips remain unchanged.
Aurora Innovation and Volvo Autonomous Solutions added 200 miles to their commercial freight network in May, opening a new route between Dallas and Oklahoma City. The corridor runs five days a week. It features a human on board but CRUISE CONTROL
99% of reworks sold in the United States come from China. With a 30% tariff now in effect and America’s 250th birthday on the horizon, casual consumers and pyrotechnic professionals alike are relying on a single supply chain with no scalable alternative. –American Pyrotechnics Association
not at the wheel. The companies are working to complete final validation for fully driverless operations. Volvo plans to build hundreds of these trucks in 2027.
WINDFALL
The Port of Long Beach is oering $1 million to the first oceangoing vessel to commercially refuel with methanol at its harbor. While methanol-capable ships already call there, the port just doesn’t carry it. The Clean Fuel Bunkering Challenge Incentive Award is designed to help kickstart that infrastructure. Refueling with methanol runs about $1.5 million per call compared to roughly $1 million for conventional fuel. The prize more than osets the dierence. A MILLION REASONS
USPS held a public vote to bring back one discontinued stamp design, putting Mister Rogers on the ballot alongside Disney characters, Snoopy, popsicles, and polka dots. More than 580,000 people voted online, and Mister Rogers won by 40,000 votes. The original 2018 stamp sold out in weeks despite a print run of 12 million. The reissue went on sale June 1, alongside a new four-image souvenir sheet. IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY
SunZia, a 3.5-gigawatt wind farm in New Mexico, is poised to begin commercial operations. Pattern Energy spent two decades and $11 billion on the project, which features 916 turbines, a 550-mile transmission line, and enough capacity for roughly one million homes. It is the largest onshore wind installation in U.S. history.
June 2026 • Inbound Logistics 1
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