In This Issue

Osean Talks Managing Stress to Your Advantage

Avoiding Liability for Demurrage and Detention Charges

GCCA Active in Food Security Discussions

Business Continuity Plan Template

Know Your Benefits, Maximize Your Membership

Last Chance: IARW North American Chapter Meetings

Cold Storage Industry News

Food Industry News

Government News

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Many business owners are experiencing stress caused by work, personal life, or the current economic climate.  If you are one of them, you can’t afford to let it impact you or your employees. At the 2009 IACSC Conference and Expo, being held 5-8 November 2009 at the Ritz Carlton in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, longtime WFLO Institute faculty member Ken Osean will teach you how to harness your day-to-day stress to help you to reduce stress at work and in your personal life. Osean will provide tools and tips you can take with you that can positively change the way you lead, decreasing your stress and your employees' stress. At the 2009 IACSC Conference and Expo, you’ll find a host of programming that will help you tackle the challenges of today and prepare for the opportunities of the future. Special offer: refrigerated warehouse operators can attend the event for $300! For more information and to register, visit www.iacsc.org/iacsc09.

Warehouse customers sometimes identify the warehouse operator as the consignee on bills of lading for shipments to the warehouse. Usually, when that happens, carriers, both rail and motor, attempt to recover demurrage, detention, freight and other charges (Transportation Charges) from the warehouse operator simply because the warehouse operator was identified as the consignee on the inbound bill of lading. There is no agreement among the courts as to whether a warehouse operator is liable for such charges simply because it is identified on the bill of lading as the consignee rather than the “in care of” party. Therefore, it is possible for warehouse operators to be found liable for their customers’ Transportation Charges solely because they are identified as consignee on the bill of lading. Certain steps can be taken to avoid direct responsibility to rail and motor carriers for Transportation Charges by a public warehouse operator who is incorrectly identified as consignee on bills of lading. Read more here. Also, download “Notification to Carrier of Status As Warehouse Operator Only” that warehouse operators may send to rail and motor carriers to avoid liability for their customers’ demurrage and detention charges.

GCCA President and CEO Bill Hudson was invited to attend a discussion on the floor of the United Nations focused on partnerships for food security. GCCA was one of the select organizations invited to sit on the floor for this discussion on global hunger that was hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. With the full UN delegation in attendance speakers from Rwanda, Bangladesh, United Kingdom, Brazil, Sweden, Australia, and Pakistan addressed an all encompassing approach to achieving global food security. See the full agenda of the discussion here.

A month earlier, GCCA Director of International Programs Richard Tracy participated in a meeting on food security at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC. The meeting included U.S. government representatives and private industry as well as Cheryl Mills, Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Michael Froman, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser; Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President; Franklin Moore, Deputy Assistant Administrator for USAID; and Raj Shah, Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics at USDA. Discussion centered on global food security standards and how to improve mechanisms for engaging the private sector in strategic discussions and investments at the country level, including public private partnerships. Through the World Food Logistics Organization, GCCA and its members conduct or contribute to cold chain assessment and research projects in emerging and developing nations. These projects, which benefit communities in need and introduce GCCA members to new markets, would not be possible without strong partnerships with government agencies and nonprofit organizations like the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and others. To learn more about how you can participate in WFLO international projects, visit www.wflo.org/hq/Intl_Programs/Intl_Default.asp.

Thank you to all who have participated in the North American Chapter Meetings in developing an IARW Template for a Business Continuity Plan. The discussions have been fantastic and the IARW Insurance Team can’t express how grateful we are to everyone who has shared information and brought copies of their plans with them to the meetings. Our goal is to have a draft template ready by 1 January 2010 and to develop a Business Continuity Plan Webinar for anyone interested in learning how to customize this to your facilities. As always, please reach out to your IARW Insurance Team if we can assist in any manner by contacting Connie Phipps, at cphipps@lockton.com or +1 816 960 9946.

IARW-WFLO publishes five technical manuals for its warehouse members. In addition to hard copies, members of IARW-WFLO have online access to all technical manuals. The IARW-WFLO Maintenance and Modernization Manual covers the physical structure of the warehouse, refrigeration engineering, material handling, and more. If you are in the process of repairing, restoring, updating or building a new facility the Maintenance and Modernization Manual is a crucial resource. To access this manual or any of the IARW manuals, visit the  Membership Resources page on www.iarw.org.

For more technical information on building and expanding warehouse, register for the 2009 IACSC Conference & Expo and reap the rewards of the in-depth educational programming and technical sessions. Visit www.iacsc.org/iacsc09 to learn more and register today.

You still have a chance to catch the 2009 IARW North American Chapter Meetings! For the past month, IARW has held one and two day meetings across the country. Each Chapter meeting focuses on issues impacting the refrigerated warehousing industry in that region. Join us for the South Pacific Chapter Meeting (8-9 October in San Diego, California, USA) or the Southwestern Chapter (14-15 October in Dallas, Texas, USA). Register and learn more at www.iarw.org/chapters.

Preferred Freezer Services of Chicago, Ilinois, USA has opened the first fully automated public refrigerated warehouse in the United States. See full release.

The Port of New Orleans is seeking letters of interest from parties with professional design and construction capabilities who would like to bid on a design-build contract to construct a 140,000 square foot dockside cold storage facility.  See full details here.

The owners of a "food park" on the outskirts of Norwich, UK have invested more than £300,000 in new hi-tech cold storage facilities.  See full story from Eastern Daily Press.

Foreign companies are trying to move into the growing cold chain logistics industry in China before less-experienced domestic players can take over the market.  See full story from Global Supply Chain Council.

Frozen food stocks in refrigerated warehouses on 31 August were greater than year-earlier levels for butter, cheese, eggs, pork and turkey.  See full report.