Everything is Logistics

Freight Friends: AI Agents, Returns, and Private Label Power Plays

• Blythe Brumleve

Share episode

From AI agents that negotiate contracts to the surprising world of private-label branding, this month’s Freight Friends covers the big shifts shaping logistics right now. Blythe Brumleve and Grace Sharkey break down Grace’s experience at the Change event, the rise of Happy Robot and other AI-driven workflows, the state of reverse logistics, and how private-label strategies are influencing everything from Costco to Meghan Markle’s failed brand.


Key takeaways:

  • Supply chain executives at the Change event are prioritizing education and AI readiness.
  • AI adoption is slowing in some areas, but practical agents like Happy Robot are gaining traction.
  • Reverse logistics is becoming a bigger operational challenge for retailers and manufacturers.
  • Private label strategies separate brand failures from retail giants like Costco.
  • Marketing plays, community spotlights, and Source-to-Porch stories keep freight creative and human.


LINKS:


WATCH THE FULL EPISODE HERE

Feedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.

-----------------------------------------

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS!

Are you experienced in freight sales or already an independent freight agent? Listen to our Freight Agent Trenches interviews powered by SPI Logistics to hear from the company's agents on how they took the entrepreneurial leap.


Shipium is the ML-powered shipping platform built by the executives that created Amazon's supply chain technology. They help 3PL & retail leaders like Stord, Ryder, and Saks Off 5th to reduce shipping costs by an average of 12% while improving on-time delivery.


CargoRex is the logistics industry’s go-to search platform—connecting you with the right tools, services, events, and creators to explore, discover, and evolve.


Digital Dispatch manages and maximizes your #1 sales tool with a website that establishes trust and builds rock-solid relationships with your leads and customers.

Blythe Milligan:

Welcome into another episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. I am your host, Blythe Milligan, and we are proudly presented by SPI Logistics. We've got another episode of freight, friends for y'all this month. Grace Sharkey, of order, full is back, and we've got a full docket of things to talk about. Just sort of set the roadmap for today's show. Grace was just at the change event, so we are going to talk a little bit about her experience there. Happy robot, which is the AI agent, I guess, a voice calling software program, just had another raise. So we're going to talk a little bit about that, and then we're getting into some the state of return logistics. That's going to be one of the bigger stories that we covered today. Another big story we're going to cover is the private label, white label side of logistics, where some interesting things that have happened with Meghan markles as ever brand versus some of the more successful brands that you know, use the private labeling approach, Costco being one of them. And we're going to get into some some freight marketing, a little bit of spotlight that we're going to put on some folks from LinkedIn. And then finally, we're going to round out the show with our favorite source to porch story. So

Grace Sharkey:

Let's get into it. Grace, welcome. Yeah, excited. Back from change a couple of days ago over in Columbus, Ohio, and for everyone out there, that's an event that's put on by the Association of supply chain management as well.

Unknown:

And, you know, I will say, Blythe, it was one of the first events I've gone to that's really focused on education. One for those watching who are wondering, is that an event I should go to in the future? Big shippers, big, big titles. Of those shippers as well are there, and they're there to figure out how to really push their supply chain initiatives further and so a majority of the conference is educational classes, just updating people on some of the biggest strategy ideas in logistics today. Literally having sit downs, people having discussions with each other, coming up with plans together, much less of almost feels a little bit more of like, like a retreat, kind of energy, right? Like, let's all go and, like, you know, sometimes companies will do company retreats where you have a little fun, but you're also there to, like, plan, maybe the next quarter, or something like that. It felt very much like that. So I will say that was the first conference I've been to where, especially the round tables were very popular. A number of them were, like, quote, unquote sold out, right? So there's only a certain number of seats for certain situations. And again, just really interesting topics, whether it's, you know, security, fraud, etcetera, all the way down to, you know, visibility and, of course, technology as well, and how you can implement those into your strategies. So I loved it, and I got a really great chance to also execute, whether we call their innovation showcase, imagine kind of like a a shark tank situation for you, right? Yeah, it was, was sitting, and I will say too, like a little bit of that's like one of those as someone, if you've ever been on stage or had to moderate a panel, this was, like, an interesting type of thing to moderate, because there is so many, like, ins, outs, you come on stage, you're off stage. So for me, it kind of it was like the first time that I had to be a little bit more dynamic on stage, if that makes sense. But the panel was awesome. So if you've been to Freightways events before, you've probably seen or heard of John Larkin, who's an industry expert and is currently a senior partner at venture 53 which is an industry investment group. And so of course, I was happy to see him. I see him in a lot of events. Outside of that, I got to meet Adam James, who is the vice president of CH Robinson's NASS division, so that's their North American surface transportation. It's really great to talk with him one on one. And then I got to meet two people I've never met before. Which one was Jim? Well, here's a funny story. His name's, I was presented that his name was James Hess, but he likes to go by Jim Hess. And I will says in like the gas station Hess, that might be a southern gas station for me. Reference, isn't it pinging, but H, E, S, S, so if so, then yes, it's the green and white is Michigan State colors. Have you ever seen? No, but I love it now, they might have gotten bought out. I think there's still, like has casting Hold on. Can't I mean, they gave out by BP. Oh, I see Yeah, no, I've seen it now. Yeah, yes, that company. We don't have them out here, but 2017 they've been gone from roadway since 2017 so rip Speedway acquired them. So it's again, some big Speedway fans. So good for them. Them and 711, way to go speedway. But I will say for deep cut the office fans. He was like, You can call me Jim. I said, Oh, jimothy, you know deep cut. He got that reference. I said, You're cool. I like So Jimmy s from he's actually the global reverse logistics manager for Google. Oh, wow, yeah, awesome guy. And then last, definitely not least, was Pedro Netto, who is a supply chain data scientist over at HP. So they all had, like, really great questions in regards especially their own experiences and how they, I think, use technology. I will say the winner of both the judge, the judges and the people's choice was a company called Diderot, who I got to talk to an interview out while I was there too, and they're the co founders. Background is kind of in comes from McKinsey, but a lot of work he did at McKinsey was Supply Chain Management, and they basically have created this AI agent that executes a number of supply chain events and to bring up happy robots. And not surprised to see the AI agent taking over. Honestly, it was really cool. They they're part of their demo, and it's a situation where you don't always want to do a demo, you know, because you only have five minutes, but he gave enough of a demo to showcase kind of just how this this agent can, like, execute. And I think it was NetSuite, actually, that he used, and it was really great. And I will also say some hot gossip, but fun fact, if anyone's there and watched him, apparently his laptop just shut down on him, like immediately before taking the stage. So I was really happy to hear that under that pressure, he also pulled off a great presentation. And what, wow. Yeah, he really did. I personally, I would have voted for him as well. You know, in those situations, we give them a rubric, and he did a really good job of hitting everything that those judges were looking for, not being too scripted, you know, focusing on the problems that they're solving, what they've seen and execute so far, being realistic and in terms of the work that they're doing. And I just think that these, these AI agents, right? Are, are something that people are all looking at and figuring out, how can I, can I utilize these and and then this one is procurement specifically. So cool company, I would say, go check them out. Really awesome guy too, that we got to meet, and maybe someone you can talk to in the future. But, yeah, that was a lot of fun, and it just really great experience. I mean, it was the first event that I've done, like, outside of freightwaves, too. So that was kind of not that that was like much different. But you know, when you're out writing at the event, you get a little bit more time to talk to people. And, yeah, okay, I see what you mean. Yeah. So that was nice. I got to do a little bit more of like true meet and greet, just curiosity, looking into things as well. But yeah, I really, I would say, if you're looking to go to this event in the future, one really work with the team to, like, maybe lead a roundtable. But I think what's really cool is, for the tech companies that were there, is that this environment is high executive level leadership who's going there to strategize? So if you were, for instance, Diderot, and in that strategy session, they're trying to find ways to use AI more in their logistics operations, what a great opportunity is for those leaders to leave that space and immediately go into your hall and, like fresh of mind be like, Oh, that's what I would need to execute this. Yes, does that make sense? It does. Because you with AI agents in particular. I mean, I think with any kind of like, new tech that you're going to be adopting, you want to know, like, what do I need to start thinking about now so I can start setting the chessboard up properly, so that I can properly execute, because we're seeing a lot of reports that are coming out, and I think we, you know, we'll kind of get into it when we talk about happy robot. But you know how I think it was like a McKenzie study that was just dropped about, you know, AI adoption is slowing. I just read a report like this morning about how, you know, users using chatgpt. T search is is falling slightly where they have, I think, lost a percentage point as far as like the search market share is concerned. And so Google has really stepped up their their AI offerings. And so think trying to figure out, like, where AI fits in our current processes, and how much of a heavy lift that's going to be. I just had a podcast sponsor called shipium, and they're Jason Murray, who's the CEO, came on the show recently, and he was talking and they have this great graphic that was listing out, because it's tough for me to kind of visualize at times, like, what can agents like realistically do right now? Yeah, and you have, I think for a lot of these companies, they have so many different inputs from their WMS, their TMS, maybe their fleet ms, like all of these different systems that all run independently, and then you gotta load it into you, probably your project management software, your marketing software, your sales software, and then it layered that onto emails. And there's so much complexity to it that I think sometimes it can I mean, at least for me, like it can be overwhelming at times. Shipping has a great video on it. I'll link to it and in the show notes, so people can take a look at it. But it's breaking down all these different systems. So then that way, you can make it actionable. As far as, like, what I need to do as a business owner to start setting up the deck in order to take advantage of some of these tools, some of these early adopters, it's kind of hit or miss with with success stories so far, totally, yeah, I would agree. And I think, well, and another part of it too is a lot of the technology I think that we're starting to focus on, is, is it's not like, perfectly, like, plug in and ready to go. It takes, like, a conversation always almost needs to be, like, built a tad towards your type of whether it's industry or even the type of freight that you're in as well, right? Like, I mean, even in the work that like orderful does, right, like there, there's certain things that we're building currently that will be needed for the more of, like the healthcare environment, or like the pharmaceutical environment, right? Like, there's different types of data transactions that are sent, compared to, maybe, like, the steel industry and and so, like, I think figuring that out too is a big part of these, like tech conversations is like, how do you find those partners, and how do you go from there and and I think something I've learned more to just like talking to brokers who, who feel, who I feel like have a more technology focused thought process is a lot of times these companies will connect with, like, let's say, like an augment or a happy robot, really early on, and both companies get to kind of grow together, right? So it's like, you kind of have to consider that too. And a lot with a lot of the companies that were at change, right? A lot of them were very new and startup companies, again, great place for you to, like, meet them there and say, How can we kind of attack this problem together grow? And I think that's why, like, a lot of times, when you see raises, you'll often times see, like, big, like, big fundraisers at first, and then at the end of it, you'll see, like, an NFI or or someone like, like for us here, orderful NFI is one, right, like, they're an investor of ours, but that's also partly because they're one of our first big, big customers that we help build out with too. So, yeah, it's, it's interesting space, and it was just a good event and good technology right to look at. And I think too, it's just, I wonder how these companies are getting around, because Lars had a great post this morning on AI, like, it's not enough to you know, if you set the if you set the debt correctly, and you set up all the deck chairs, and then you buy the thing, and then you you're starting to implement it. It's one thing to do all of that, but probably the hardest part is getting folks to actually adopt it and not look at it as like something that's going to take your job, something that's going to replace you. There's a mental aspect of or a psychological aspect of getting over that hurdle to get people excited to use these different tools. And I think for a lot of folks, like, if they experience one single level of frustration with AI, they just wash their hands of it and never want to pick it back up again, not realizing that this is the worst that AI is ever going to perform. Like it's only going to get better. And you can't go into it with the mindset of that, oh, I'm an adopting I'm adopting AI, so I don't have to worry about anything. I try to use AI to build a website like it's, it's, it's. Tough. It's, you know, and I'm trying to improve these parts of like, my own processes and my own businesses. And I can fully admit that some of this stuff is just not there yet, but on some of it, like, when it hits, well, it's astonishing, and it's, it's, it's such an advantage, I think, to businesses that you know can move a little bit faster and can be a little bit more agile, and so being able to have those conversations at an event get kind of the like those ideas firing, and then being able to go out on a trade show or an expo floor and being able to see it live in action, I think that there's really nothing else that can compare to that, because that just shortens the buying cycle too for, I think, a lot of these companies as well, well. And to touch on, kind of the AI piece that you're talking about, one of the speakers was kind of diving into a little bit, I think, of the aftermath that you're talking about. So right now, a lot of like, AI that we're building is like, what you could potentially call like, user friendly, right? So it's like, intuitive. It's enhancing the huge user experience, right? It's more accessible, where you can also build AI in a way that's more system friendly. So it's like, focus more on performance, data, management, infrastructure and so, like, they got into a really interesting discussion of, like that, push and pull and that, like, right now we're a little bit more into, like this user friendly aspect. But like, if we really want to get into the powerful stuff, especially for supply chain, we will eventually have to, like, move to more of I think the system focused, AI and like, how do you, you know, put that into your operations, knowing that it won't be user friendly, like, and just like, realizing that there's a gift each of those models, I think, is interesting too. Yeah, I would definitely agree there's got to be some level of of patience and willingness, yeah, to want to adopt these things. And I think that starts from because I listened to this podcast that's the marketing AI Institute. They're based out of Cleveland, but they put out a great weekly podcast, you know, explaining all of the different AI news that's going on, how it can impact your business. And the one thing that they've really said over and over again for a few years now is that you have to get somebody in charge of AI operations that should be their sole responsibility is just AI ops, and that they're working and developing plans individually with each department. Because AI is going to touch accounting. It's going to touch your marketing department is already using it. Your sales department is probably using it as well. And so with it having these kind of tentacles in each leg of the company, you need somebody to manage the operational side of things, because there's different automations that are being set up for different goals, different functions. And even though it's set up once, like, you still have to monitor that there are no, you know, kind of exceptions or or exception management, I should say, Are there any issues that pop up from a technological, you know, perspective that has to get, you know, patched and or reworked, or, you know, additional code, like, there's all of those different things, and you have to have somebody that can play that operational role, from an AI lens, which I think a lot of companies are missing out on, and maybe why you're probably seeing some of the adoption slow a little bit, because, just because you throw stacks of money at it, you know that doesn't mean that you have good data. It doesn't mean you have good processes and shifting those two big things is a massive it's a massive task on your staff. So I think for some companies, it's especially in these kind of economic times where it's just easier to just keep doing what you've been doing versus adopting new ways of doing things. So there's a lot of like psychological things that I think that is also affecting, like aI adoption as well. Yeah, totally, definitely. All right, well, let's talk about this happy robot raise, because we're talking a lot about AI. So just to kind of give like a brief overview of what just happened, I'm gonna read a little quick summary of what's going on. So it says we often talk about AI and automation, but for our one for this segment, we're focusing on a startup that's putting AI to work in a very practical, blue collar kind of way, happy robot, a startup out of San Francisco just raised a big series B funding round. They're not building a chat bot for your phone. They're creating autonomous AI agents that do the manual, repetitive work for freight operators, things like booking appointments and negotiating contracts. And it's a great example of how AI is transforming in the physical economy. So you wanted to talk about this, so give us, I guess, sort of your take on on what this raise means. Well, I did want to talk about this, and I also want to. Uh, hop, skip, and mark this as my marketing Play of the Week too, because I don't know if you pulled it up, Blythe, but I'm sure you can. Have you seen the video that they had for the race. I think I saw it on LinkedIn. Let me see if I can pull it up, but, but go ahead, while I'm pulling it up, as I say, I can. I'll drop a link here. Oh, perfect for you. Um, well, one I just, you know, it's interesting, because probably about a year ago, or no, yeah, a little about a year and a half ago. You know, I had met these guys when, like this, all the AI agents first started coming out. And I think it was a perfect showcase of a company who, like, really rode their drive and ever and kind of, like, the the hype around them. And what's really cool about happy robot is they one, I do like that they have some experience, right? Like, I want to say one of the brothers worked for uh Bertoli. It, oh yes, uh, pasta, pasta sauce. Yes, yeah. Okay, yep. So that's one thing. So it did, it did originate out of of an issue. But on top of that, it's what I'm seeing now. And I think what this video captures is like, at first, I think people are looking at Happy robot because of the way that they showcase their technology. Is just like, oh, this is an agent that could take phone calls, etc. But what I really love are the people I've worked with happy robot, how they've taken that to the next level, how they've used that system to not only, like, of course, take the phone calls, but collect data, and then use that to their advantage. And if you play the video, it showcases like the perfect way of like, how phone calls could turn into, like an operational advantage. So yeah, if you want to play that for the audience, because it's very well put together, too. On top of that, it's whoever did this? Did a great job. Let's go ahead and I'm gonna hit play on this video. All b5 actuators are defective. We're stopping the whole line now. Looks like this. Could delay production by two days. I'll find a replacement. Hey, do you have any b5 actuators? You don't have any actuators. Sorry, no actuators. Here we move bulk, not actuators. Found replacement. Actuators. Shipment will arrive in 48 hours copy, but with that delay, will be late by two days. Okay, let me see if I can get this on a later ship. Yeah, we don't have room on any other ships this week. Got it finding another solution to keep the shipment on time. Hey, I'm trying to get a shipment out. Are you able to ship four tons in the next 24 hours? Yeah, yeah. We can do 14k per ton. Let me get back to you on that. What's your price to ship in the next 24 hours? Easy, 8k for a time. Perfect. Getting the paperwork sent over. Hey, man, your appointment is coming. Looks like there's an accident ahead. That explains the gridlock. I won't be able to complete the run on time. No worries. Already looking for another driver. I'm available to pick it up. I'll get it there on time. Hey, Shannon, good news. I was able to get the shipment delivered on time. We're eyeing expansion to two new regions in India. Can you deliver? Consider it done already on it thick, huh? Wow, that was that's a great video, especially because I love it too, because they're the way they've introduced this already. I think people are like, wow, that's cool. But what's cool about that is, it showcases, like, all those phone calls you saw, like, when I was trying to figure out different pricing. It's doing that all at the same time, right? And that's like, What's crazy about this is, is even as short as that video was, that technology doing all those things is probably even shorter than that video, and I get excited because I think one, it show, it showcases what can be done with AI in appropriate ways. But two, I can't imagine, like as someone working underneath that that technology, how valuable you now come become to your company, right? So it's like, I don't know the one thing I would say out there's that those two things. But also, just as someone who might be participating in the logistics industry right now, and you're kind of concerned about what AI might do with your job, like, I hope you see a video like that, and you think, instead of like, oh, how will this, like, impact me in my role today, in like, a negative form, like, whether it's being let go or being outsourced, it's like, looking at it differently is like, how much more impactful you can be the company and the role that you're in, and not saying, like, Okay, you need to call happy robot right now, if that's how you feel. Ill. But like, I just, I think that AI, and even in some of like, I, you know, I'm doing a little bit of, like, consulting work and stuff in the brokerage space, like, and a lot of it, like, like, I'm sure you do the same thing. It's like, I'm using AI to help with those tasks. Like, I'm really excited to see, like, how our generation, of people who've started to understand this, this technology can leverage it to produce more income for us. At the end of the day, like, I don't know, I just I'm on this AI trip, because it's like, okay, yeah, engineers, I get it. There's probably a few of you listening or like, Whoa, is it? Lol, it for hallucinates. It's like, we know, yeah, we know. I'm sure we all hated text messaging too when it came out. But now look at us and and again, it's phone calls aren't going anywhere, right? Like, we still are going to have to do things, just like we still have email today. We still have pilots behind planes. Like, you know there's there. Of course, we understand the nuances of AI, but like, I just hope that there's people out there, like a quick shout out, maybe to like Sarah Miller, who I know works for ally logistics out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'm a big fan of Dan out there, but Sarah in particular, like, she's a technologist, person who's like, come into the industry, just she had, like, the the job and what it was looking for someone to do, and has not been able to, like, take AI and, like, really be impactful ally. And now I'm like, seeing her write about AI more. And so I just hope that people, like, take the AI in particular in this industry, and figure out how to, like, run with it because I, like, I use it I'm using for note taking. I use it for I'm just starting to, like, start using the AI agent right in chatgpt, and like, how that can help workflows, right? Like, how can we improve those so at the end of the day, like, we have more time to spend with family. We're not answering phone calls late at night and and we're becoming economically more powerful at the end of the day as well. So yeah, back to happy robot though, full circle, as much as, like, people want to point fingers or something at like, the holes that they might see in that that video showcases the future of what this could turn into. And it gets, I mean, we should get excited we're going to be able to expand the different suppliers that we use, different lanes that we use. We get to utilize modes of transportation better than we ever have because of technology like this. Yeah, I echo that statement because I'm ultimately, you know, I've said it before on on this show, that I'm a tech optimist and that, you know, adding these additional layers, like it makes me more efficient, it makes me think about how I can adapt and evolve my own companies. And so then, that way I can make my, my company, more sustainable. And I'm on, you know, I have a Reddit account. I go on Reddit pretty frequently. And just the amount of, especially in like, some of the like, web dev communities or graphic design subreddit, is probably like the worst, because they're just so angry about AI, yeah, and they'll see, I think there was, like a, there was a post the other day that it was like a Sketchers bill, Sketchers, AD and, like, the subway that it was made with AI, and it was, you know, very clearly, like, has that look to it. And so one of the graphic designers in the subreddit, like, tagged like graffiti, like, you know, wrote all over it, like, hire real artists and, you know, don't use AI. And it's like, bro, this is one random subway in New York, they made that. If they didn't want the ad to look like AI, then they could have easily done that with technology already available, but they really like made it from a creative lens, made it look a little bit more sci fi. And you know, that was what they used for one random marketing campaign. And on the flip side is when I hear from different creatives who have started implementing different AI tools, that some of these tasks, these manual tasks that they were doing like that time process is just cut in half. And so like, as a business owner, a graphic which, as a graphic design artist, if you are working for yourself, you should be thinking about different ways that you can optimize all and it doesn't even have to be like the genuine art that you want to create. It can be on the financial side of things, the tax side of things, the managing your emails, so you can get rid of the stuff that you want to do less of and focus more on the stuff that you want to do more of and it take away from your ability just because it's another tool in your tool belt. So I detest the kinds of comments like I was going to take away our it's like South Park take our jobs your Jeeps. Oh, just I think, short sighs. And I think just rooted in a fear that does not exist, like jobs evolve, yeah, social media role did not exist 1015, years ago. Yeah, it exists now. Like these are new opportunities that, yes, some opportunities that exist today, or some roles today will evolve and they will go away. But I think it was something crazy, like 60% of the US population worked in agriculture before the Industrial Revolution, and then the industrial revolution happened, and now more people don't have to work in the fields. So it's like we cannot stifle innovation, because some people are scared of evolving. And for a lot of companies, especially bigger companies, it's going to be a little bit harder of a process to adopt, because it all of the other things that we've talked about, like process optimization and reorganizing. Your process is not an easy thing. It takes months to do, and it is incredibly annoying, and you can't wait for it to be done until the next time you gotta do it again, and it's like Jesus put a drill to my temple. That is the type of work that, once you do the hard work of it, then AI can take over. And, you know, really be that sort of, that gasoline on the fire. So if your business is slow right now, if you are worried about how you're going to be growing in the future, you should be process, optimize, optimizing right now and figuring out where these tools can fit into your business right now, because if you don't, you're unfortunately, going to get crushed. And I think that massive opportunity for some of the smaller brokers, some of the smaller carriers, some smaller companies out there that you can change a lot faster than these bigger competitors, and then you'll be able to move even more fast when you have some of these process optimizations in place. So that's my I guess my diatribe on, like, stop looking at, you know, adding a calculator to your tool belt as a hindrance to the work that you're doing. It's just so short sighted. So hopefully, you see a video like that, and it kind of gets you hyped up to be able to tackle some of the bigger problems that exist in your own business, in your own career. Be the leader in especially if you're working internal you can be the leader that is researching these different topics and finding different use cases, and you can be the go to person in the office for some of these things. And so I guess that's my long winded rant of, like, Stop bitching and get to work. Like, yeah. Or, I mean, at least test stuff out and try to be like, a champion of AI within your business. Like, you know, it just, it doesn't have to be about just like, oh, I have to find something to play, but it'll be open to it the very least, right? 100% all right. Everything is logistics. Blythe Milligan here with Grace Sharkey and we are talking with our talking about our next topic, and that is the state of returns. Because it's we're coming up on holiday season. I know a lot of companies aren't thinking about returns right now. They're probably not even thinking about holiday shopping at this point. You're probably starting to get more into like the budget mind. But if you're looking at your budget, you're probably going to be, especially if you're a retailer, you're probably going to be seeing a lot of impacts to your bottom line, to your margins that are eating into it. One of the biggest drivers of that is return logistics. And I was actually, did you know that there is a difference between return logistics and reverse logistics? I didn't know this, but apparently it's very clear. I saw my head how it could be different. So returns how they define it, and is based on so I told you this before we started recording. But for my show notes, when we determine the topics, like, I have three different AIS, like going in the background of like running these deep research reports on different topics, and then I combine all of that information into one kind of docket, and then I write my show notes and my thought processes on based on that research document. So I pulled a couple tweets that were talking about the difference between returns and reverse logistics. And returns equals the consumer process, where reverse logistics is the full circular flow of repair, refurbish, recycle. So the National Retail Federation frames this shift towards circularity as a cost and ESG play. So that's the difference between return versus reverse logistics, where, and we'll get into, you know, some of these different examples. But just to give kind of an overview on the state of return, logistics is returns are the customer facing boomerang of commerce. So it's the initiate, ship back, triage, refund or restock, while reverse logistics is the bigger engine behind it, where it's refurbish, resell, recycle and keep value in the loop. And so in 2024 returns alone were projected to hit 890 billion. Billion dollars. And so policies and tech are shifting from free and easy to smart and sustainable. Interesting because, especially for no but now that you explain it, though, that does make sense. The the reverse aspect, especially the sustainability aspect too, is like, that full circle, right, of what's exactly happening, and once your product is unpackaged and things of that nature, right? Like, where is that all going? Interesting? Well, this, this, they talk about the boomerang economy, and they say the boomerang economy is real. It's fees, box, you know, box free, drop offs, even keep it refunds or reshaping the game. If you ran returns for a mid market brand tomorrow, do you fix the policy first, the process first, or the tech first? And why do you fix which one of those first? And so if you think about think about it from the lens of like some of like Amazon, for example. Like, if you go to buy an outfit, it will tell you, based on, you know, so many reviews this size will fit you best. Yes, there's also a notification on like the the checkout process, or when you're looking at it evaluating a product to buy, if it this product has been frequently returned, then there's a whole like checkout process. Where do you want to combine these items into a single delivery day? Do you want to ship these items in the original manufacturer's packaging? Or do you want to wait for our packaging? There's all of these different options that are technically part of return logistics, I believe. Yeah, return logistics, reverse logistics? Yes, and so you're trying to combat that problem before it becomes a problem. If that does that, if that makes sense, yeah, like it's almost feels like, it almost feels like return logistics could be considered reverse logistics. But reverse logistics isn't always about return logistics. Yeah, there was just like new for I think, well, you know, it does make sense. So because there are, might have been this week, but I've definitely met people who are in more of, like reverse logistics. But when you talk to them, their job is almost more of as, like sustainability aspect, right? Like, it's almost like, what's your reverse logistics from what I'm gathering, it's almost like, what's your footprint you're leaving behind? Yes, the ESG play, I think, is how they phrased it. So more of a circularity and ESG play. But just take a look at I so we've been building out not to plug my own company, but it's my show, so I'll get to I already did it. So look at all of these companies that we have just in the returns category. I mean, oh, wow, this is it's a lot so far. I mean, some of these, you know, they play in other arenas as well. They have different categories, like freight claims, obviously, is is one that has different categories that it could focus on. But there are lots of people trying to solve this problem. Go to cargo rex.com if you want to see more of these, make sure you create a free account. So now I got that plug done. But yeah, there's so many different aspects to this, because it's so expensive, it's such a huge problem. And I was listening to this, this company called loop, and how they are integrating into Shopify stores, and what they're doing is they're charging a fee as you check out. So what you know, they don't want to give the, I guess, perception that all the returns are going to be free anymore. They want to give the optionality to the consumer, to say, Do you want to so what they do is they have a guaranteed like, you can guarantee to get this item returned if you pay an extra like 299 so that covers your packaging, that covers some of the shipping costs, and then getting the replacement back to you. And so they charge that fee, and then it's also dependent on, are you part of a loyalty program? Are you a VIP customer? This is all like different aspects that loop can kind of customize during your E commerce checkout process, but they'll add that fee on. So then that way, from their their thinking is, is that from a consumer perspective? And I want to make the consumer think about this. Do they really want to buy it? And if they do want to buy it, is it some kind of an item that's going to that has a higher likelihood of getting returned if you're buying, like a, I don't know, like a Dutch oven or, you know, a light bulb or something, you're less likely to need to return that, versus a shirt that you ordered and you thought it was going to be cute, and then you put it on, it's a disaster. So, like certain things with like apparel, like you should probably be charging a fee to return this. And so they put it on the onus on the customer, and say, like, you could lock in this cheaper return rate as a safety net for your. Self. But if you did want to return it, you know, later on, you're going to pay this, you're going to pay 599 instead of 299 so that's one way they're trying to alleviate it. I know with especially on the return side too, maybe you'd experience this. But like inside, like the sheen app, like, if you want to make a if you do like a giant, like I've done, like giant orders where I'll order like a dozen different items, and this most recent order, I think I want to keep, like one thing from this order, like the rest of it is just not good, so, but I have to wait, even though I know I want to return the overwhelming majority of the order, because I just hate the way everything looks on me. I have to now wait until those other items are shipped and I receive them, so then I can do one return. Otherwise she in is going to charge me if I do multiple returns for the same order. So there's all of these different mechanisms. So I know Amazon does it that way. There's also, you know, with Amazon in particular, because they have the best logistics out of any kind of different you know, e commerce offering out there. But when you return your item, you can go to a whole foods. You can go to, I think they used to have a deal with Kohl's. You can drop it off at UPS. So you can have ups, pick it up from your home, like all of these things, depending on what their relationship is like is or what their partnership deal is like. Because I've noticed with UPS, they've started charging, well, depending on the on the return, and some of the I've noticed even on the clothing side of things, like people just kind of call it, I don't say quits, but either they just don't accept returns anymore, or if you are returning, it's, it's going to only be store credit, so at least they're not losing the potential revenue, I guess, that they would be getting from you. Or they know, Okay, the next investment we make will at least be something they're probably going to keep, right? Yeah. Or the next, like shipping investment we make in them is is going to stick, which I will say, has pissed me off, because some of those places I now don't buy from, because I just, I don't trust that this, the size is going to be there. Or I'm in my being a short girl. I'm in my Taylor era, where I'm just like, not like Taylor Swift, but I was like, Whoa. That is funny. Like, that is, like, breaking news right now. I mean, I didn't even mean to I meant, like, a tailor, like, I'll just, I'll, for sure, get a size I know is going to be too big, yeah, and then, worst case, I'll take it to the tailor and get it done. But still, I know I'm going to okay if I buy this, there's a really high potential that I'm going to have to spend$10 or something right to get a tailor too. So, yeah, I've it's funny. I'm happy that you had brought this up, because I've just noticed that more and more with clothing and and honestly, my consumer behavior is because of it's honestly moved more and more to in store purchasing is the clothing companies have just kind of given up on it. And I almost wonder, from a true reverse logistics standpoint, so more so looking at their footprint, they're saying, listen, like we need our shoppers to figure out what the hell they want before we send anything to them. Right? Because at the end of it all, regardless of your return, logistics is good. I'm sure your reverse logistics manager is saying, our footprints going up, right? Yeah, and it's definitely it's eating into your margins from a retail perspective. And for I think that the multi tiered approach, I think, is fascinating, because then you're trying to prevent as many returns as possible before it ever gets to that stage, and then offering these different solutions. But what happens if none of those solutions work? There's also return fraud where, you know, somebody bought, I'm not gonna say who, but I have a friend who bought a record, and he bought a couple, and he kept the really expensive, like collector record, and put in the cheap record into the little, you know, vinyl cover slot, and sent it off to Amazon. And Amazon took the return. He gave him all his money back, and he, you know, he got to keep the item. So, I mean, his mindset was like, Well, f Amazon, like, I don't, you know, I don't care about this big company that's, you know, screwing their workers over that. There's that kind of mindset too, of like, just the overall return fraud, which I think is growing at, yeah, it was. It this stat here, fraud abuse pressure, because studies peg that 103 billion of losses tied to return and claims fraud in 2024, and that's only going to increase like, you know, I saw this Tiktok of this lady who was looking at some of these returns that were being sent in. And there she looks at the reason, and then she compares it. It was like these light up shoes for a little kid. And you could very clearly tell it those shoes have been worn. And on the return, it said the reason for return is that the lights didn't work. And the. Ladies like, sitting there. She's like, they work, but what is she? And all the comments are like, just process the return. Grandma. Like, don't, don't audit. You know, the reasons why people are making a return. And it's like, well, at some point you gotta, you know, kind of, where does the line stop and end? Like, you know, where, when does, and I know I have heard of like, you know how you have your own reviews, of like, when you're getting an Ubers and stuff like that, where a driver can leave you a review. I've heard that Amazon keeps those similar profiles on their shoppers too. So if you're returning too frequently and too often, and you're returning for false information, then they have a certain percentage level of what they're willing to accept, as far as like fraud is concerned. But I'm even more, I'm more fascinated by like, the secondary effects of all of our online shopping behavior, because we've talked before in previous episodes on like, the rise of like, flea markets and vintage shops and secondhand shopping, secondhand stores, and like, the thrill of the hunt when it comes to, like, TJ Maxx and things like that. And where, I think this is also, like playing a role in all of this, is, have you ever seen those videos where, like, the people buy the pallets that are like, all returns? Yeah. I am fat those. The content does great. First of all, yeah. And then if you keep, if you get to keep some of the stuff, like, some of the stuff is really nice, it is really nice. And they have, I think there's one of those stores by us to where you can go and, like, buy, maybe not a full palette, but, like, boxes, right, that are just you're hoping, yeah, I think that's I would love to do one of those. Maybe I should do it on, like, a future show and, like, buy a palette, unbox it, even, honestly, like, you pull a couple of good things out of there. It's worth it, right? Girl, math, like you can, I mean, it's the thrill of the hunt, right? That's the whole reason why, you know vintage shops, and you know TJ, maxes and home goods, like all of these different shops had, like, the that aspect to them, where they don't have an online store because they don't want to deal with returns, they want you in the store, walking around and hunting for for different things. So I think it's that, that psychological aspect of, like, the thrill of the hunt, to buy a pallet, see what you discover, buy a you know, similarly in, you know, a storage units, you know, all of those different things that we're just evolving as far as, like, the shopping experience is concerned, too, and it's fascinating. Yeah, I love that, and we should do that. I don't know how we're here. We gotta figure out how to do it. Maybe we'd like each buy a pallet, and then we'll just do a whole show of, like, unboxing, where it's, like, just a bunch of what if that manifests? We, like, got one delivered, and we like podcast booth, and we just, like, spent like, an hour opening stuff up, like, you've just handing it out to people. Good, then I want to keep it well, yeah, no, there's stuff that we don't want. We can just like, give it out to people. Yeah, that would, yeah. We're like, brainstorming right now. The audience is probably, what the hell if you're watching, can you sponsor and just bring us some whole palette? Well, it's not today, like Timu does it. I've seen like people buy like Tiktok like they'll buy like Tiktok or Tebu pallets and get those shipped to their house too. There's all these like liquidation, because I was, you know, watching a couple videos on it this morning. Of just like these girls in the UK who get these things shipped to their house, yeah, and it's like a whole, like box truck that shows up, they lift the pallet out, and they just drop it at your front door, and then it's up to you to kind of sort through it. And literally, like, you just open up the box, and it's filled with all these random clothes and, you know, items. And you can buy one that's like, you could buy a pallet that's mostly tech focused, or kitchen goods, or No, I feel like eBay sellers are eating right now with all of this access to, you know, these returned items, eBay has come back Because of reverse legit. So that is the the state of returns. And if you want to find more solutions around this industry, just go to cargo rex.com or cargorex.io I should say, and then find the returns category, and you should be able to find a bunch of different providers that help out in that regard. So let's move on to our next topic. And again, this is everything is logistics. I'm Blythe Milligan. We are joined with Grace Sharkey, and we are getting into our next topic, where we are going to have a little freight marketing spotlight. And this actually is inspiration from a previous show. And Grace, this was your idea to to feature this because I full disclosure, I was going to skip this segment for this month's show, but you had such a great idea. So tell us a little bit about your your idea of featuring this guy while I bring up this post that he did say, I hope to God you have the post in front of you. I do do some deep search on LinkedIn real quick. Yeah, well, I did have to do a little deep search in here. I'll. Bring up the post. We get so many notifications, you know, I'd have to scroll back so far. No shout out. We should clip this too and put it in there, because we told them we would. Michael, oh, God, I hope it's geeson guessing. Michael, yes. Michael, guessing. Keep No. Michael, giesen keeps us guessing, you know. But no shout out to him. And I don't know what his company is, but I wish bridge logistics, bridge logistics group, big shout out to them. You guys know Blythe boy, does she love a male campaign, and honestly, direct mail campaign. Direct mail campaign, yeah, I guess we got as we talked about AI and stuff, yes, direct mail campaign, and I saw this. I mean, it was like, Oh no, Blythe is going to love this. Like, I think you had already, like, yeah, I already liked the post before you tagged me in it, yeah. And so I'm like, this is perfect. But no, honestly, it's like, the more I think about this, this, I think you said 90% of males all open, or something like that. So I we did do this topic, and just to kind of briefly go go over it, but we covered the logistics marketing benchmarking, or logistics marketing benchmarking survey TMSA conducted, and one of those was about direct mail, how often it's overlooked in marketing, but recent statistics show it's far from dead. The direct mail industry is projected to reach a market value of 73 billion by 2026 so it's growing, and then direct mail boosts impressive engagement response rate and average engagement rate of 95% response rates five to nine times higher than other advertising channels, where the open rates are 80 to 90% compared to 20 to 30% for email. And I can tell you that my data, from looking at client data, 20% open rate for email is very high. I would argue that, you know, for a lot of folks, it's sitting around, you know, 10 to 15% as far as open rates. But that's crazy. It is crazy and but the great thing is that Michael gets it. And, long story short, so if you go check out the post, right, if you're, you know, if you're, I guess, if you're listening to this, Michael, he goes into a conversation or, I guess, a thought leadership post about cold calls, mass emails, which I will say, I'll get to this in a second. My problem maybe with emails coming soon, but he goes into taking a different approach and sending personalized introductions through the mail. And I think these are great. I mean, listen, even if it's junk mail, I'm opening up most of my mail these days, and I agree. I think this. I mean, let's be Well, listen, as a single woman in her three in her 30s, I rarely get mail, except for my two aunts on my birthday. And, well, I mean, because most people text me, you know, like, there's not much I'm getting in the mail. And so I, you know, I get something personalized. I'm excited for it, and I'm sure people are thinking the same thing. And so I'm happy to see this. I also, I so I think I was watching a podcast or something, someone brought this up, and I'm very bullish on this idea, too. I think because of how much we're using AI for emails, I'm not saying that that's a bad thing I do. Like that we use AI for email outreach. I'm not saying don't do that, but I think because we're doing, Oh, there I am. Go ahead. Oh, it was you. I was, I was about to start. Sorry. No, okay, so my, I, I'm very bullish on in person being driven by AI capabilities, because it's much like it's, it's often like when we see videos a lot of times. The first thing I think is, if it's so crazy, I can't believe it's real, I I say to myself, is this AI? I think we're going to start feeling the same way towards emails, right? And so if we start feeling that way towards emails, it's going to be harder to close deals via email. So I just, I'm very bullish on, like, sales in particular, becoming a tad bit more in person, because I think people will want to meet the people that are behind these, these tools. Again, I don't I'm not saying that the AI email tools are bad. I think they're very efficient and and probably worth your time, but it's going to make the in person time even way heavier in the scheme of things. So, you know, I'm happy that Michael kind of addressed that in the post, because I didn't just agree with this post because of it reading Blythe mind and return in regards to mail. But I also he touched on the fact that even I think emails are going to die a little bit because people are going to want to to talk to the person face to face, and they're not going to want to talk to you on the phone. I don't think that's going away any anyway, soon. So, yeah, I I loved it. I was happy to see like people are finding that the direct mail stat out themselves. As well, and are still utilizing that. And, yeah, what I love, too, on this is that, especially with, you know, a lot of the conversation you touched on with AI, but then there's another like conversation around, like outsourcing, and where you're sending your business, are you hiring Americans? And you know, you know that kind of topic, but on these envelopes, like, he has a little sticker that says, We live here, we work here, we move freight everywhere. And it has a little, you know, a shield that looks like it's relative to the, I believe it's the city that they live in, yeah, because it's called, yeah, it's like a Pickens County, like little, you know, how when you go to, like, a national park, you get like, a pin or something, but it looks like that kind of like a shield for the local community, and so that probably, if I'm a business owner, and I get that 1,000% I'm opening up that letter, and I'm reading it, and I'm probably going to go to their website, I'm going to connect with that person, and I am doing that work, And then you don't even have to do that work, of like, you know, reaching out to me and bugging me over and over again. And I just, I love that kind of just extra effort. The only thing I do worry about is just for my own selfish reasons, like, I have horrible handwriting. So I would love horrible handwriting where it's I often have to translate for my husband when I'm writing things that we have, like a weekly dry erase, yes, like cooking calendar, of like, who's cooking? What on what days hilarious. He's like, what to say, my brothers is, my brothers is like, like, do you feel? Is it more like, It's just chicken scratch or, well, what I've kind of said my whole life is that I just, I think faster than than what I write same. So I'm just like, it's it makes sense to me. Sometimes it doesn't. Yes, my little brother and I'm assuming other younger generations, I definitely aren't teaching cursive anymore, and you don't have to sign government documents and curse of anymore. His handwriting looks like he's four, like, it's not, it's not that you can't read it. It's just like, is the R backwards? No, it's like, it's like, the letters are too big. They're not like, in the line. It's yeah, and so, yeah. So I don't like you're probably doing good. Sounds like you've got return problems right now? Well, I will say, while we're talking about, you know, a lot of these, you know, direct mail and returns and things like that. We were right before we hit record, you know, we were sent a link on how to redeem some some company swag. So if you're looking to do some direct mail marketing. We just, we cannot vouch for this company, but we are currently using them as shout out to anything wrong. We just found out about them seconds ago. But I do think that this is a cool service. So if you're looking at, you know, obviously there's the route that Michael took where he finds the addresses, he writes a handwritten card. I think that that's absolutely valuable. And then there's also a next level to it. If you want to send some companies some swag, it looks like personalized gifting swag management, because typically what happens in these kinds of environments is that someone in the company decides, hey, I want to send swag out to, you know, 50 of our top customers. And guess who's the person that's tasked with doing it? It's typically the executive assistant that has to take care of all of that for some random sales guy that has an idea one day. And then now you have to put everything else to the side in order to take care of this. And I wish I would have had something like this reach desk in order to help me with sending out some of these different swag gifts and, you know, whatever. That's a little bit of a rant. But I just, I think that these are, like cool, different resources that you can create a company, swag store in order to, you know, send your employees, your drivers, things like that. But you can also use it from a customer perspective too, where, if you're trying to reach them, you know, maybe send a handwritten letter first, and then if they bite, you know, you can send them a sweater or something totally. Do y'all use any kind of gifting software yet? Or, you know, it's funny, because I'm literally, I'm working on that, like, as we speak, and so like this did fall on a tour lap at a perfect so great for the holidays too. This is a great time to plan some of those different outreach campaigns, and so maybe it alleviates some of the work on your end of having to manage all of that. So hopefully that's a good resource. But shout out to Michael for for doing things the right way in the age of AI, where maybe he is using AI in his job, we don't know, but maybe he is using it and then he can devote time to more beneficial activities, instead of going to zoom info and downloading, you know, 15,000 contacts and spamming them exactly. Okay? Buffer. Good job. Michael, alright, let's move into our next topic. Blythe Milligan here with grace. Sharkey, this is everything. Is logistics, presented by SPI logistics. And we're going to get into a little bit of drama around the private label paradox. And the reason I wanted to bring this up, yes. And that's because a strong word. Maybe we shouldn't say hate right now, but we fascinated. We're fascinated. Yes, we're we're negatively fascinated. And so when the reports came out. Now for those of you who may be living under a rock, Megan is technically a duchess of Sussex, which is a part of England that she no longer lives in, that she said goodbye to with her spineless husband, Harry, and then they moved to the United States under the guise of wanting a private life, and has since launched several different high profile Netflix shows, Oprah specials, Spotify podcasts, and then now a company. So she's gone through a little trouble as an entrepreneur. She tried to, you know, that's the American dream. Well, speaking of American dream, she tried to trademark American Riviera orchard, I think, is the exact phrase. But according to trademark law, you cannot trademark a specific place. So her trademark was rejected. She can't, you know, be two and, oh, for trademarks on like me, like your girl over here, she doesn't have the staff to do it. She's probably too mean to them and bullying them. So she started up another company called as ever. And as ever is essentially unlike what she bills herself on this Netflix cooking show that's filmed not in her house. She doesn't she doesn't live in that house. It's not her garden, it's not her honey bees. But yet she's portraying that. She's selling all of these products, her raspberry jam and her honey and flower sprinkles, as if they come out of her garden. None of that is true, because she's using a private label company, probably Netflix, but Netflix doesn't want to promote her brand on their website. I checked last night that I find that very interesting. You think it's Netflix jam. So the way it works is that for their popular franchises, Netflix offers a store, a brand, that you can go and you can sell some branded merch for, like, Stranger Things, for example, a perfect example, yeah, where they have all of the Stranger Things, merch that they've created. The rumors are that the people on the show get a get a kickback. You know, some of those products that are sold, what a stream, and they offer this as an additional, an additional, how do I want to say this additional perk of hosting a show that is successful on their platform, since it's not that successful of a show, yeah, how could we milk this? So the route that she took for her business is going the private label route. And the private label route is very common among major retailers who will partner with. So say, like great value with Walmart. I believe you have, you know, some information on Trader Joe's, Costco, Kirkland brand. These are all very successful private label companies that source their products from a co manufacturer and that person or that business, that manufacturer is making the same products. Let's use like Kleenex, for example. Kleenex is going to make their product, and then Costco will come in and say, Okay, we want you to make the same product for us, and you, we're just going to do a small markup on it, and you're going to put the Kirkland brand on it. And so they'll work out a partnership deal where they there's a lot of this stuff is hidden. So a lot of these retailers don't even reveal on who their manufacturing partner is. There's been a long standing rumor that gray goose, the famous vodka maker, makes the Kirkland brand vodka, even though gray goose has denied it in reports. They're under no legal obligation to admit it, but I've always, I was former cashier at Costco, but that's always what I heard is that the Kirkland brand of vodka is made by allegedly gray goose. So that is sort of the private label paradox of, you know how to position how these companies especially like celebrities when they're pitching like a I think it's Kendall Jenner that, and the rock as well, like they pitch themselves as being like tequila company owner, but all they're doing is going down, if they are even doing this much, but going down and finding a farmer who's already growing the agave, who's already has, you know, some kind of tequila manufacturing. That he's doing for some kind of companies, and then they just partner with them and slap their own label on it. That's essentially what Meghan Markle has done with her as ever brand. And one of the quotes that I wanted to bring up, which is a little spicy, and I think I tagged you in it on on Twitter, is that the reason her company, her rebranded company, is failing is because the quote was, is that she spent millions on PR instead of supply chains. And so when I see that, I say, this is a gold mine. We got to cover this in the future show. So that's how we arrived here. And now we're going to tell you some of the success stories of some of the more popular private label brands and what makes them popular, and so I think you have Trader Joe's as an example. So tell us why Trader Joe's and their private label has been so successful. Well, I do want to say too. I got a nice list of some some private label behind the scenes for you, too. So you brought up Costco, right? They do private label, a bunch of other stuff. So one is their coffee is actually from the Starbucks manufacturer, uh, Duracell does the Costco brand batteries? Bumblebee does the tuna for Kirkland or Costco? Walmart's known for doing this too. Tyson Foods is most of their chicken. So if you're buying Tyson chicken. It's the same as your Walmart chicken. Now, the reason I brought up Trader Joe's is because Trader Joe's everything is private label. That's what they that's what they're built upon. So pretty much all of Trader Joe's food comes from the actual like focus product. If you've been to Trader Joe's, even, I think they, they have pretty close to the Girl Scout cookies too, because they're buying those directly from the same manufacturers that make the Girl Scout cookies. So you see this all over but yes, Trader Joe's does this as their actual like, you know, I guess strategy to to existing today. 80% of their products are private labeled. A lot of it is like Frito Lay does those? Does their pita chips? And so when you go and you see these better prices, know that they're coming. They're because they are technically some of the regular items that you're actually buying. And what I think is interesting is I've always, like, heard this, and I've thought to myself, like, Well, why would, for example, like, why would Duracell do that? Why would Duracell also put their same batteries on a shelf next to them that they know is probably going to sell for less, right? It doesn't seem odd, right? And and the reason for it, though, is, if you like mathematically, think about it. For them, it's about being able to produce higher volumes and bring those margins down no matter what, and it's also an additional revenue stream for them, exactly. It's a way for them to basically compete with themselves on a shelf. And at the same time, it can do that because likely that price difference between the Duracell battery and the Walmart battery is still more than what you get from producing a larger scale, but I think it's interesting, like I always when I really started learning about private brands, and specifically started learning about Trader Joe's, I would tell you to like, go to because they do hide it, but honestly, A lot of them do put it on their packaging at the end of it. So I would really push you to, like, I do this with pretty much all foods I buy now, is if they're pretty close. If I'm looking at a regular brand and a private label one, I'll look at the well, first off, I'll look and see if it's showcases. Where it's coming from. If it's in the same city, it's likely the same manufacturer. If it doesn't have that information on there, I go immediately to the ingredients, because the ingredients will read exactly the same, and if those ingredients read exactly the same, honey, save $1 and get the Walmart brand. And so I, when I first started, I think I saw a video on Trader Joe's, like, over a couple years ago, and it and one reason I started looking into it was because it was like, Well, why would you do that? Right? You're like, competing yourself that same stuff. But then I started learning about that, and now as a consumer, it's like, I will gladly buy a private label, especially if things are looking the same in general. So, yeah, that's why I think people love Trader Joe's so much. They love the one you're you're getting things a little bit cheaper, but you're also getting the things you're already planning on buying and a little bit cheaper as well. So, yeah, so Well, there's even, like, the the Costco route, where I was watching this, this video on, like, the history of, like, the current. Brooklyn brand, and at first, so to back it up, a little bit like retailers like Amazon and I know target in particular, they have multiple private label brands inside of their own, you know, sort of digital, whether Amazon digital e commerce stores or within target itself, and you would never know that that brand is owned by target, because it looks completely different their packaging and all of that stuff. So Costco followed a very similar route in their early days, where they had a bunch of different private labels, but quality control became a concern. And so what they did is they created the official like Kirkland brand, because it was based in the the town that they had their home offices in, and so they called it Kirkland, and then they developed these relationships with these different suppliers that were already in their stores. And so they'd created, like, a pricing structure where they agreed that, first of all, it's quality plus pricing. And so for the pricing. There these brands that they partner with are not allowed to sell it for, like, a, you know, a certain percentage above, like, I think, 10% so they have to keep their pricing pretty stable. And then the Kirkland brand will always be cheaper and but also, with the Kirkland brand, they they partner individually for each of their their like coffee, for example, they partner with one company for coffee, whereas, you know, maybe Amazon is partnering with several different companies for their battery production. So there's a level of like, You scratch my back, I scratch yours with the Kirkland brand for someone, maybe, like a Duracell to create, like a and I don't know if they have like Kirkland batteries, but I'm just going with that example. But also they have an additional layer of quality control where no Kirkland brand is approved for a new product unless the CEO is actually testing it. And so they have this, like several layers of quality control that that will always, you know, sort of permeate throughout the company. And so I think that that's where you know everything from what you said to the success of the Kirkland brand, because I have a couple graphics here that it is just, it's ginormous of how much this brand has grown, the Kirkland brand in general, like, look at these numbers. So Campbell's, Hershey, Kellogg's, McDonald's, Nike, Kirkland has more revenue. And this is a chart from 2021 but you could argue that a lot of these numbers have stayed the same, if not, maybe Kirkland has grown more market share. Because, you know, obviously, McDonald's has struggled in the last couple of years. Nike has struggled famously in the last couple of years, but they have more revenue than all of the rest of the companies combined. Yeah, crazy, yeah. And you know the fun one for you, personally, I actually learned it's kind of the same thing. Do you know who the Try Guys are? The name sounds familiar? Yeah, they're the, well, they try, go figure, yeah. So they're, like, it's a really popular YouTube channel. They try a bunch of things. And I like watching there, of course. Like, they go to, like, Disney World, you know? And like, try all the fun foods and stuff like that. One of the episodes Keith goes into because, just because he's tried food at so many locations, he's he's starting to figure out, like, all of the Disney food is just craft Interesting, yeah. So it's like, I think some of it's grown right, and you can usually tell, but it's like, like, universal uses the same stuff, like, in, you know, I'm trying to think of what the food is that he usually gets that he's like, I know how this is going to taste, because it's craft. But, you know, amusement parks are doing this all the same thing too, right? It's like, there's only, he brings this up in one of the episodes. There's only truly in terms of, like, like eating at schools, eating at amusement parks, eating at, like, public places, like three manufacturers of of wholesale for this, and, like, the whole United States. So it's like, if it's not craft, I think he said it was like GFS or someone else, but it's the same thing. Like, a lot of that food you're eating is like the same and all those places. So have you ever seen that image of all of the businesses that and I'm going to share it, yeah, really quick, but if you're just listening, I'm sorry, but it's like this giant web of we have 123456789, about 10 companies, but all of these different brands that are under those 10 companies is just astounding. Like, I can't even like, zoom in enough on this photo for you to be able to see all of the labels that are associated with these 10 big companies are probably all using the same that's why our. Food System is shit, because they're all using the same BS, allegedly, and they're in all of their products, and then they feed them to us. And you know, we're all have gut health issues because of it, yeah, except for, like, we love you, Coca Cola, some brands in there that I do like I do. And I'll get more into this, you know, a little bit in in our last segment. But I'm on like, a big, like, health revitalization journey. And, you know, I'll talk more about that here in a bit. But I just the more with our food system, the more layers you peel back. It's like, wow. Everybody is really, like, full of shit, except for Kirkland and all these and Trader Joe's. Like, that's what it feels like, is that all of these companies are just out here, you know, trying to kill us. But then on, I think to kind of, you know, bring it full circle the shop. The modern shopper is savvier, and they can see right through the bullshit. And I think that that's where, you know, companies like Costco, with their Kirkland brand, are succeeding, versus, like the Meghan Markle, like as ever brand, where, you know, she's launching, like, a new bottle of wine on Princess Diana's birthday. No lie, what? Yes, wow. She just loves to piss us off, doesn't she? You know, it's at that weird moment where, like, you know, she's pissed off everybody in her personal, like family, close circle life, because none of them come to the wedding, besides her mother. She disowns her father, who she still hasn't spoken to, forced Harry to disown his entire family and all of his traditions, and you know all of that, and you know now, bringing it sort of full circle, it's like you're not a stay at home mom, you're not a stay at home wife, yeah, you're kind of a fraud, because she's picking all of these products that she's she's portraying herself as almost like a Trad wife, and she's none of those things. And she's filming a reality show inside of a house she doesn't own, stuff from a garden that's not hers, honey bees that are not none of this is hers. He's not touching people. My best friend is a bee gal. Shout out to Bellwether bees if you need honey, go to their website. But she ain't, she ain't touching no bees. That's the thing. Like shoppers can sniff this kind of stuff out. So she's kind of like 510, years too late on being like the Pinterest food influencer vibe, yeah, why she even needs this career path is beyond me, but it's the the private labeling of her brand is never going to work, because shoppers are much more savvy now, yeah, they can seek out the brands that they truly resonate with, or that they truly find value in. Yeah, and that's the Trader Joe's, that's the Kirkland brands, maybe not so much as, like, you know, great value. Or even, like, Amazon Basics, because there's some questionable things going on with Amazon Basics that I don't necessarily agree with, with their private, private labeling, where they essentially, you know, there was, like, there was this bag manufacturer that spent like, I think it's called like Peak Design or something like that. But they make like travel camera bags, and they've been spent 10 years developing the concept around this bag. And then they want to add another revenue stream. They want to add another outlet. Where are people shopping? Of course, on Amazon. So they start selling their products on Amazon. Well, what does Amazon do? They completely rip off his design that he spent 10 years getting all of the, you know, the due diligence and the product testing and the customer feedback and tweaking all of the things and supply, and doing all of the things to get a successful product to market, and they rip off his design, and if it wasn't for and he says it in the CSC NBC video, that if it was early on in their business, they would have been crushed. And so now what they do is they make sure that they have a design patent on everything, so that Amazon can't come in, because what happens is that if Amazon has all of this data, and allegedly, they can go and see certain products that are selling very high, that have a low return rate, kind of bring it all full circle with this episode, and they can use that data to then go and make their own products and then shove your product way down on the search result rankings and push their product to the top. And if it wasn't for him going to the media about this, about what Amazon was doing to him, then he says that his company would have been wiped out. Luckily, his fan base was built up and that it was stronger, so they a lot of these users. Went and left bad reviews on that Amazon product, and Amazon stopped making it. So that is a minor, like success story, and sort of a David versus a Goliath kind of battle like that. But there are countless other people. My uncle was a victim of this. He was selling office products. He had the full like, you know, in person, store that people would go to. Obviously, when time shifted, he moved his business online. Time shifted again. So he started selling his products that he was sourcing that were really good sellers that his customers loved. Started selling them on Amazon. And there was one, like ladder in particular that was like their number one seller. And then one day, that business just gets cut off and Amazon's ladder from Amazon Basics is shot to the top of the rankings, and his is nowhere to be found. And so that is a major he pulled all of his business off of Amazon because of it, because he was so pissed off, and like, rightfully so. But that's kind of shady practices, like, consumers are getting wiser to these things. Yeah, hopefully we'll spend unless they need it. You know, in two days, hopefully you're making smarter shopping decisions because of all of the information that we have at our fingertips. Of the brands that do it right, like, yeah, trade videos and Kirkland versus laziness, or the outright theft, yeah, you know what some of these other companies are doing. It's almost like, back to what I was saying about the AI stuff. It's like, I think how much AI has grown, we've quickly started to realize, like, what's real and what's not. And I think as much as you know, I don't want to make it like a political thing, but like, I think we're seeing the same thing with our food as well, right? It's like, okay, we're understanding labels. We have the internet, we can easily look up what these ingredients are. The other thing too, about it as well, and because we used to talk about this on freightwaves, stock out show is it's not hard for a lot of these companies to switch, because they're already making these products and for Europe, right? So it's like, when we let you talk about, like, the red dye, things like that that are being that are in our food system for who knows? Yeah, they're really just kind of taking advantage of maybe the ignorance of America Americans, and the lack of regulation in that space. So it's like, I think the same thing is happening, right? Like with our food, where it's like, no, we we're going to figure out kind of what you're doing, and we're we're going to make better decisions as consumers as well because of that, right? And more. So we know that you can pivot, if you need to, and still make a healthy margin because of our abilities to get our hands on those documents, to know that the ingredients are different, and you're still able to be a profitable at the end of the day, right? So I like, I like it. We're almost like, going through this like, like intelligence, maybe, like revolution, where it's I mean, we see a bullshit detector is getting better, exactly, but I think that that's because we're getting smarter in a way, right? So longer that we have bullshit detectors, we just know it's not true. And, and, and, so, yeah, it's fun to, like, see how that's gonna affect consumerism throughout the next couple of years. Yeah, because, I mean, I'll definitely say, like, after like, all of the sort of the tariff drama, it's, I've cut back on a lot of my just, I guess, dumb spending, like, that level of like, consumerism where it's like, you know, I'll buy, you know, spend 100 bucks at temu, and I'll get 100 products. And, you know, who cares? I'll just, you know, throw it away if I don't need it. You know, it doesn't matter. And Tim doesn't want it back, and so they're willing to let me keep it if I don't want it, and or the product breaks within a, you know, two months, and it's like, who cares, I'll just get another one for $6 like, it's that kind of mindset that I think is shifting in larger scale. And I, you know, I, I don't know, I think for some of this stuff, if I would, if someone would have told me some of the things that are coming out of my mouth, even, like five, six years ago, I would have rolled my eyes at myself, like, who cares? Like, go save the planet, you know, whatever kind of, like, I guess, sarcastic remark, but I think that a lot of these, like, we just to bring it back, like, we're just getting more savvy as a customer, and we're able to be maybe more intentional about where we spend our money. Is it, you know, with small businesses, or is it something that's more of a quality item that's been handcrafted? Is it something you know? Is it, you know, honey from a local you know, bee farm like that feels better to spend your money there. And I think where, you know, I I kind of still have to make improvements, is like the convenience factor. Or and, you know, some of these items I just needed in two days, like, you know, and I'm willing to, you know, look the other way of some of these practices based on needs, but I am trying to shift my consumer behavior into healthier options, more sustainable options, and just trying to be a better person. I guess overall, the one thing I will say to that, though, and this is why I've always been bullish on more of like micro fulfillment and more of like, how close are we to? Kind of the things that we want is is can what they say, convenience is the price of community, right? So, you know, consider that aspect right, like, the fact that if we can actually get to a point where we feel like we're buying more, like, basically, can we get to a point where we're ending that, where it's not a price right, where we can create fulfillment centers in a way that we can buy clothes. We don't have to worry about shipping our clothes from for$12 across the United States. But there's just, you know, a short distance for that return. And so I think that that's probably, that is probably what more of the reverse logistics right is trying to do is like, well, can we figure out a way to make this, all right, sustainable in a realistic, more modern setting. So yeah, and if you're just listening to the isolated segment, because what you know, sort of peek behind the curtain a little bit we are, yeah, it's in the it should be a link in the show notes for you to be able to listen to that other conversation. And so on YouTube, we are still uploading this show in full to both the podcast and then also as a live video to YouTube. But then YouTube, the algorithm just likes it more. Likes it better if some of these segments are split up. And so if you missed any part of that return versus reverse logistics that is in another show, it should hopefully be recommended to you algorithm wise, but if not, just check out the playlist over on YouTube. So I think it's time to get into our last segment. Yeah, would you agree? Okay, good, perfect. Alright, well, for this last segment of the show, this is everything. Is logistics. I'm Blythe Milligan, Grace Sharkey here presented by SPI Logistics. And this is source to porch. This is my favorite segment that we do, because it gives us each a chance to kind of, you know, pick out something, kind of keep our eye on, something of what we want to feature maybe in the future. And I'll go first with, I think mine is a little bit of a quicker one. I think yours is much more cool. Mine is just more on, like, the medical side of things, because I'm going through, you know, some some dietary changes. I got some blood test results that were not looking very good, and so it's resulted in, like, several follow up appointments in order to see how things are going. But it's also required a complete, like, dietary change. And so for the last I would say, since May, I've done a complete overhaul of my diet, where it's like all anti inflammatory, and, you know, flax seed and you know salmon and omegas and doctors got me on the Mega train now too. Oh, I mean, it's so many I have a regimen now of different supplements that I take, like, morning, noon and night. But I will say adulthood is going one day taking no pills to the next day taking every pill. I don't know how I'm gonna manage this on like, trips and stuff I got, you know, first trip that I'm taking next week, epic universe. I'm gonna do a full little, like, logistics of a new theme park on our next episode that we record together. But I have these, like, little I just bought, like, you know, they have, like, all the pill organizers. Of course, I didn't want to take that because I've tried that before, and it's just too massive. And it's not full, you know, it's not, it doesn't fit well in my travel regimen, so this time, I just bought a bunch of like, little mini plastic baggies, and so we're taking it back the old school dime route, where we're just going to shove all of our legal supplements into these little dime bags, and then we're going to be able to, you're supposed to mix them with Your legal ones and put them in your building Well, for the sake of this show and the legalities around it, to protect our sponsors too. We are only talking about the legal supplements here that I bought the little dime bags for in order to just make it easier on myself, like bandwidth wise. Like, I don't want to be at a theme park and be like, Hold on, I have to stop everything. Go back to the hotel room. Okay, figure out what supplements I gotta take, and then get back at it. So I'm just trying to make it as easy on myself as possible by just my locker all day in and out of those lockers. So good news is that I just recently got. Follow up, blood work done, and I hate to brag, but brag. I'm going to brag because there's several of these, like key elements that have been, quote, unquote dramatically improved, and I'm freaking pumped about it. Because, you know, for folks who have never dealt with inflammation, like it doesn't it's not something you note, I have sort of prided myself on being the girl that can kind of eat everything and like, still work out and like, still feel like I'm fit, but once you hit a certain age, it don't work no more. And if I now, since starting this diet, it's been just absolutely like, sometimes I'm just, I went to a fantasy football draft recently and I had a beer and a half and two slices of pizza, and my stomach was like, we're not playing this game no more. And that is devastating in on one hand, but to get all these blood tests back, these results back was like the logistics fee, and that's why I wanted to talk about this for the my source to porch, because Quest Diagnostics is absolutely like the logistics process behind quest is fascinating. They even have inside of their office. And I wish Twitter wasn't blocked right now, because I would pull up the picture of it. But they in each of their offices where you get blood drawn, they talk about their full like logistics process, and it's really, really incredible, because I went and got this blood test taken, got the blood drawn on Friday morning, and by Sunday night, Monday morning, the results were already in my account, which is the logistics behind that is an incredible feat, and so let me University of Michigan Health listen to this lady and fix your awful system. Well, let's talk. So a few key highlights, because their carrier base and drivers are just insane, so they have in house drivers, so Quest Diagnostics, directly hires medical transport specialist or quote, unquote drivers. Their job postings indicate a large fleet with a publicly stated number of around 3800 courier vehicles and 24 planes that serve over 80,000 courier stops daily. They also have external carriers, and then they also have add additional benefits. They don't sort of publicly announce this, but they do. You can kind of read between the lines. They are kind of a broker too, because they're offering all of their logistics pickup and testing services to other clinics and other providers. So they're able to they've kind of like a pharmaceutical Amazon, where they've built in, they have proprietary TMS platform, proprietary software, and so now that they've kind of honed in on that logistics process, now they're starting to sell a lot of those services out to these other clinics. And I just I thought it was pretty fascinating with some of these stats. Let me see if I can find a couple more, because they have unmatched scale so they can process specimens from over 50 million patients a year and handle more than 10 million lab specimens annually. The savings for hospitals are around 20 to 30% through small or through smart bulk procurement and equipment upgrades. Then they have specialized handling, of course. So they, for all of their drivers, you have to have a certain kind of cooler in your car. You have a certain, you know, depending on even what you're carrying, what kind of results that are, you know, maybe it's not just blood, but it's like bodily fluids too. So you have to have all these, like specialized carriers that keep it at a certain temperature. Another carrier that does a lot of medical transportation is Lorena carmego, from Pearl trans so she does a lot of that. That's who I was just trying to find on LinkedIn. I couldn't remember her first name. Okay, there we go. So shout out to Lorena. She's heavily involved with clda, which is customized logistics delivery Association. I think I have that acronym, right, but she's she, that's her bread and butter is these, these kinds of routes. So I just thought that that was a really cool, like, sort of like, the business impact of quest is that they're super efficient logistics network. It enable, enables them to drive consistent revenue with the 2024 revenue of quest reaching around $9.3 billion so I was, I had no idea that that were, they were that large, but when I got my blood test results that quick, I was expecting it to be like a couple week process. But this was, I mean, Friday morning to Sunday night I had my results well and imagine like her name is Lorena, right? Yeah. Lorena, Lorena, I think what she helped me understand, too about that type of logistics service is the the intensity of the i. Anonymous aspect of it. So, like, clearly, like, you don't want these companies have to be very, very protective of your data, right? Clearly, don't want that information getting out. But even, like, I remember she was explaining, can I, like, deliver it? Because I think they're doing work for like, what do you call it? When you're you're not doing the baby yourself? Oh, you're right. So collecting, like, specimen moving eggs and things like that. Like, she was even explaining, like, a lot, like, we have to reach out and see if, if people are comfortable with us coming to their homes, because a lot of these people might want to hide the fact that they have are working on a surrogate so you can't just, like, show up with your like, van that says you know your name, like, you have to be true almost, like, like, really strategic on, on the just respect that's like, really the respectfulness behind that type of logistics and and understanding, like, right, like, how important it is and how awful it's going to be for someone, for someone like you, if that stuff gets mislevered, or it gets into the wrong hands, or becomes just the wrong specimen, and you get your results back. And like, understanding, like, not just the cyber security of it, but like, the true health cost and even emotional cost that could potentially come with moving a lot of these type of products, yeah, because I think she her company, also, like deceased bodies, organs like these are all things that you have to have a high Like, care for whoever the end customer is, yeah, it's just you can't mess up with things like that. There's no room for error, because that, that room for error is life and death. Totally. Like, well, it's like, yeah, you lose, I mean, talk about fraud and stuff all the time. Like, yeah, sure, you lose, like, a couple pallets of cereal here and there. But like, losing my eggs, you know, is, or a kidney, or something like that. It's obviously, you know, it's, there's not a priceless so I always, I just find that area of logistics so interesting, because not, not just because of the security of it, but just like the emotional and like human aspect of it as well is really intense. Yeah, so that's my little logistics of Quest Diagnostics. So anytime you're getting your blood drawn in that facility, pay attention to some of the graphics that they have, because they're very proud of like their logistics process. So shout out to them for for getting me my my blood test results, and ultimately, good news, yeah, I was gonna say great, great news too. I've been doing some fun Doctor stuff that we can talk about off camera, but it's stressful. It really, honestly, it really is. And you know what, I'm well, I'll, I'll just kind of touch on for me personally, I'm kind of going through a diagnosis of something that's also also, at the same time, not fully researched as well. So, like, I'm basically working on, after my last results, highly likely PCOS, which for all, and I'm going to, because I'm going to say it wrong anyway, so I'm going to google it to it too. That's polycystic ovary syndrome. And it's, it's something that a lot of women are just starting to get diagnosed with, because it's kind of hard to find it. And honestly, with the way that insurance and the medical system works, like, it takes a lot to, like, get to the point where you do find it. And so, yeah, it's it, you know, it's Hey, make this a health episode. We gotta, you know, be the older we get, the more we gotta spend time doing that stuff. And so, yeah, and I think, too, for a lot of like this testing, like, I think it's so important to get it done at a younger age, because our food system, you know, to go back to an earlier story, because our food system and our food supply chain is, is such crap, and they're putting so much crap in our food for God knows how long, at least, since the early 90s, that they've been swapping, you know, good ingredients for bad ingredients. And it's having a terrible effect on our bodies, our reproductive systems, you know, for on my end of things, it was, you know, a history of a colon cancer. And, you know, for folks under 40, it is colon cancer is the number one cancer that is affecting young people. Or for folks that are under the age of 40, PCOS and complications around reproductive issues is, is also one of the driving factors that's affecting the young population. And I have several friends that you know have been impacted by this. And then there's also, I'm going to butcher the name wrong, but you get it. It's one of those things where it's like these blood test results, if you can get access to this. Information earlier. There's much more of an opportunity to make corrective action before it becomes a serious problem, before it becomes cancer. I mean, obviously you can't. Is not medical advice. We're not doctors, yada yada yada. But if you can catch some of these and correct them and like inflammation, for me, like it's basically like a layer of sludge on all of my organs, where, theoretically, I might feel healthy, yeah, but might it's going to get to a level like it did to me over the summer, where you're completely debilitated, you cannot move because your body is working so much harder than what it should be. And if you don't have blood test results, then there's doctors can't give you any kind of answer and bring you full full circle. I cannot tell you how much chat GPT has helped me through this entire process, being able to take my blood test results, create a health plan, figure out what supplements I was buying. That just sounded good, but I didn't really need knowing what kind of supplements to buy, looking for the certification on different supplements to make sure they're legit, because they're not regulated by the FDA, so you have to do additional searching just to find out which supplements are going to actually impact you, avoiding things that have, you know, ingredient labels, like proprietary blends, where you don't know what you're putting in your body. And so being able to it's been a huge learning curve, but I, I can tell the difference now, especially when I have a beer and a half and two slices of pizza, something I should be able my whole life I've been able to eat no problem, probably triple that at times in one sitting, and now it's a problem like that signals to me that, like I can enjoy this stuff, but in moderation, but also having a greater understanding of where this stuff is coming from, what I'm putting in my body, and just trying to have a greater awareness around not just the food I'm putting in my body, but like the social platforms I'm engaging with, you know, what am I putting in my brain? Like, you know, what am I digesting? That's that's good for my mental health, too, and so trying to make a lot of changes. And so far so good. I'm a little bit on the luckier side of things, so hopefully we've caught some of these things a little bit early, and it's not as serious as it was looking, you know, a couple months ago. Well. And let's be honest, it's going to be a really long jag season this year. And so I gotta be able to drink for beer is going to be drunk. And you guys thought you'd do something, you know, you thought it was we are want to know. So I don't know who you talking to, but we are currently undefeated. Well, I saw the Vikings. We almost lost the bears. And I will say Michigan State is the number one football school in the state of Michigan. And I do. I do kind of, being in Florida, I will say that I do love, sort of, the resurgence of the big 10, because being in sec country like I have never, I'm an NFL fan. First and foremost, I've never understood the I'm going to cheer for a rival school just because they're in my I think that that is sorry to all the fans out there, but boo, like I, I don't like it, but I am a Louisville fan, so I guess I kind of have to pick my battles as far as, like schools to support, hey, Louisville fan than a Kentucky fan, you know? Oh God, the Kentucky fans are just, I would be a loser outright. I'm a cheater. Yeah, the list goes on and on, you know. Well, speaking of cheating, I don't, I don't know if Louisville is any better. Oh, good old Kentucky. Hey. Well, hey. Speaking of sports, though, my source to wait. Have you Yes, are you done? Oh yeah, I'm done. Enough about your health, and I'm kind of tired of talking about it too. It's consumed my life quite literally. Um, so actually this, I got this idea for this off of a tick tock. And so I was like, love it actually, let's be honest, I don't have tick tock. So I thought you downloaded tick tock. You have to, for orderful, none of our customers are on it. What are you doing on there? That's probably a lie, but okay, no, I did. I looked it up. I did the research. We need to see the report. The only person is like IBM Sterling, and that's because IBM's on there, but, and you know, IBM, but so, you know, listen, I love a good cocktail. And while I've never been to the US Open the honey deuce, right? Is their signature cocktail. So we've all seen it. We have friends. Rachel Premack, shout out to you, girl. I saw you made it to the US Open and got your little honey dews. If you What would you say? I said, What is a honey deuce? Ever seen a honey juice? Oh, no, I'm pulling it up right now. Oh, my God. It's like you would love it. It's a perfect little drink. Yeah, honey do. Oh, that is the worst fruit. Honeydew is my favorite fruit. I hate it when you buy the fruit bowls at the store and they shove it with cantaloupe and honeydew. No one wants that fruit. No I want. I want. It's pineapple, the strawberries, the watermelon, like a good fruit freeze, especially if you freeze honeydew. Oh, my God. So for all those non losers out there, if you, if you don't know what the honeydew says, it is, basically it, it's like a mojito in a way. It's pretty Yeah, it's gray goose or Kirkland simple circle, uh, lemonade, um, is it like shambor? It's a raspberry liquor in there, yeah. And then they put two of the honey, and they use the honeydew melon because they look like tennis balls, right? Funny, clever, yeah. They're not doing it for taste, that's for sure they are doing that sounds like a great cocktail. So I was like, okay, that's super cool. They've sold more than 3 million so far at the US Open. It's like the drink. We all love to see it. The other thing that was cool this year, apparently they had like a chicken like, caviar box or something. I was like 100 bucks. Could have, like chicken wings with caviar or something really cool. Yeah, we love to see that. I love to see, like, rich people cosplaying as poor, but only in moderation. This might actually be a situation of poor people. The honeydew is right there. Oh, I was like, Well, let's look into how much honey do goes into this of like, you might start plugging your ears. So we're we have stats from last year, right? We haven't so far this year. Last year, they sold over 500,000 cocktails in total. And it's since they've debuted. It's 8.4 million honeydew balls. So life 8.4 million honeydew balls have been eaten, regardless of what you hope is happening, and they all return. Reverse logistics. All of the grocery stores are sending all of their unsold honeydew melons to the US Open cocktail. If you look at it honestly, I feel like if you had to, like, make a cheap one, get like a, like a rad, like a, like raspberry, like cherry Sprite, the one that's, like, red or whatever, and then just, like, throw it in with some vodka, and, like, throw a couple honeydew slices in there. But regardless of how I, my poor self, would make it the it's actually always come from the same farm. So it's a company called Turlock fruit company. They're out of Turlock, California. Ever since, I think it's about over 20 years has been around, and they've always been the suppliers for it. And I want to say they've where is this? I have the number on here. It was quite a lot. There it is. They roughly a few truckloads of melons. Well over 100,000 melons goes to this every single year. And I want to say, where is this? I had a good number on here. I thought that that was interesting with the the deuce term, because obviously it comes from from 10, yes, drive a 4040, tie score, yup. And then, oh yes, they're all refrigerated trucks, of course, kept at 44 degrees. Takes about four days they go to what's called boulder specialty foods. It's in the Bronx, and then from there they're shipped over to the US Open, I'm sure. So yes, at Boulder facility is where they actually turn them into the melon balls, and then they shipped them over for the US Open. So, yeah, I think it's cool. I think that's a lot of melons, apparently, apparently, they didn't even know, like, who was supplying all these until, like, a couple of years ago. They just all, you know, they buy it from Balder, so they don't know actually comes from Turlock, but yeah, Turlock has been the go to for boulder for years now. And I'm sure they love when that account pays that mill every single year. They look forward to what every end of August, so that they can get those balls moving. But yeah, that's they all come from California. Really not too surprised by that melon wise, but I did find it interesting, though, that that mele, that it just comes from all one supplier. Because, I mean, I don't know what that farms mix of clients is, but I hope it's not one, because they never decide to leave. Then we have a, what I would call a sriracha issue, where the company is going to go quickly out of business at the end of the day. So hopefully the melon balls will never become a sriracha story. Part too. I do wonder too, because this reminds me a lot we have the players here in North Florida, and they have this drink called the Sawgrass Splash, which is kind of like, almost like a screwdriver, but better. So there's a little bit of like, lime juice in it. It's not as, like orange juice heavy as a screwdriver. Is very, I love this drink, but they have it's very, that's what looking at like their the US Open Cup, yeah. And like, a signature drink. I wonder if this is like, more of a trend with, like, sporting events where they have these, like, specialty drinks that you can only get there, and it's like, kind of like the derby has one right that you the the mole right isn't, no, it's the, gosh, the the mint min Julep. That's right, yeah, so a mint julep even though I don't really like Min juleps. But yes, that that's another drink that that's been around for a long time. So maybe to your point, these, some of these sports tournaments are taking a, I guess, a page out of the derby handbook and making their own, like signature drink and signature cups, which kind of creates, like, a collectible vibe around it. Because I know, I don't know if the US Open does this, but like on the the Sawgrass Splash cups, they usually have a list of all of the previous winners on the cup itself. And so it makes like a cool little like collector item too. Yeah, I like it. I think it's cool. And I kind of hate tennis, but I don't like the sport I can't cheer at first off for, like I'm going to scream. That's why I like football, because you get to yell at people that are doing something you could never do, but you're telling watch, I have to quietly watch people do something I can probably no, I want to boo and I want to smash the seeds to, you know, I want to check on defense, like, high five, my neighbors. I want camaraderie. I want to, yeah, exactly. I want to cuss out the team that decided to sit next to me when I'm, like, the waste management open like we just want to heckle people. Let us get it out of our system. Yes, be good for our mental health. Yeah. And you're so you're going to tell me, I have to go to an event that has a famous cocktail, and then I have to drink three of those and stay quiet the whole in New York City. I hate it now that I think about that is a little that is interesting, that they source it all from, or they source most of these products from California when the event is held in New York. I don't know. I would just think that maybe, like the South has some farms, or some of the Midwest has some farms that they could source it from to save on some transportation costs. Maybe, if, maybe, there's a broker out there right now. Hey, broker, here's an idea. Call Baylor food. Say, Hey, one supplier that doesn't sound right? That was expensive. Yeah, sounds expensive. I bet you're free. It's crazy, especially working out of California. Wouldn't be great if you could diversify out of Florida, the great free state of Florida, like the whole branding route. Honestly, whoever's working for the US Open, this is a supply chain tragedy that you don't even realize happening. We could save your car. No, we're trying to help you all in this process. Happy robot, get on it. Start making phone calls with your agents making the phone calls. That would be really funny if we like redid the video that happy robot. But like in a conversation that's like, we we're spending too much money on melon balls. Where can we get more melon balls? They're like, well, we can't get the boat. They're on time. Oh, is that why I'm stuck in traffic? Of an idiot. Look up the traffic. Well, I guess I won't like it well. I mean, folks, the show has officially come full circle for full melon ball, for lack of a better phrase, I think our brains are done totally. The audience knew when we started this and when we ended this. 245 is when we started talking, and then it's now 623, as when we're rounding out this conversation. So if we're sounding a little giggly, we're sounding a little all over the place. That's because we are. Our brains are done, and so we're going to leave it there. Yeah, and grace, what you got? Where do we? Oh, God, what do I have going on? Thank you. Yes, I you can find me on web pages. Use your chat. GBT, just say, who is very Sharky. And actually, what do I would say? And hopefully it sends you to me. I'm at orderful. If you have questions about your EDI strategies, reach out to us. Let us know our podcast is up and running, so you guys can check out those episodes too. Eric was our first episode. Did really well. We have a couple more for this month and some fun stuff into next month too. And yeah, excited to to jump into the last quarter of the year. Hell yeah. Hopefully it's things are starting to maybe, maybe rock bottom has been hit. I don't know. Let's hope so. That's all we can do at this point, listen around this time every year. Yeah. I think the market's gonna go up next year. So maybe I'll be right, maybe I'll be wrong. What does they say 60% of the time? It's right every time, like something like that. Yeah. So that's where we're gonna leave it, folks, this has been another edition of freight. Friends on everything is logistics. Hope you all enjoyed the show. Be sure to check out our playlist over on YouTube if you want to catch past episodes. Yeah, but that about does it you can catch more of this work over on everything is logistics.com and yeah, we're out of here. See ya. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of everything is logistics, where we talk all things supply chain. For the thinkers in freight, if you like this episode, there's plenty more where that came from. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss a conversation. The show is also available in video format over on YouTube, just by searching everything is logistics. And if you're working in freight, logistics or supply chain marketing. Check out my company, digital dispatch. We help you build smarter websites and marketing systems that actually drive results, not just vanity metrics. Additionally, if you're trying to find the right freight tech tools or partners without getting buried in buzzwords, head on over to cargorex.io where we're building the largest database of logistics services and solutions, all the links you need are in the show notes. I'll catch you in the next Episode and go jags. You. You you.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Blythe Brumleve

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

The JPU Show Artwork

The JPU Show

Jax Podcasters United
Maritime Means... Artwork

Maritime Means...

Spire Maritime
The Stockout Artwork

The Stockout

FreightWaves
The Freight Pod Artwork

The Freight Pod

Andrew Silver
WHAT THE TRUCK?!? Artwork

WHAT THE TRUCK?!?

FreightWaves
Truck N' Hustle Artwork

Truck N' Hustle

Rahmel Wattley
Let's Talk Supply Chain Artwork

Let's Talk Supply Chain

Sarah Barnes-Humphrey
Freight 360 Artwork

Freight 360

Freight 360
Check Call Artwork

Check Call

FreightWaves
The FreightCaviar Podcast Artwork

The FreightCaviar Podcast

FreightCaviar Media
What's Going on With Shipping Artwork

What's Going on With Shipping

What's Going on With Shipping
Loaded And Rolling Artwork

Loaded And Rolling

FreightWaves
Transfix Artwork

Transfix

Transfix