SUPPLY SCAN
10 J U LY 2014 ❯❯ FO O D LO G I S T I C S W W W . F O O D L O G I S T I C S . C O M
N E W S F R O M A C R O S S T H E F O O D S U P P LY C H A I N
health and safety, laboratory and
security consultants, as well as
inspectors and auditors.
"The TCBG network includes
certified lead and external audi-
tors in Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru,
Mexico, Dominican Republic,
Columbia, Central America, Ven-
ezuela and Italy," according to Jose
Maria Quevedo Pearson, TCBG
Americas director.
The standards require transpor-
tation suppliers to meet manage-
ment, HACCP, sanitation, tem-
perature monitoring, traceability
and training standards.
Dr. John Ryan, president of
Ryan Systems and the Sanitary
Cold Chain, said TransCert stan-
dards provide a solid foundation
for FSMA compliance and are
also designed to help supply chain
participants meet customer logistics
requirements.
Domino's Pizza Launches
Voice Ordering For Its
iPhone And Android Apps
Domino's Pizza has launched
voice ordering for its iPhone and
Android apps in conjunction with
Nuance Communications.
"There will be a day when typ-
ing on keyboards or with thumbs
on mobile devices will come to a
close; we want to be the ones who
continue to advance the technology
experience – hand-in-hand with
our customers," said Patrick Doyle,
Domino's Pizza president and
CEO. "Our mobile app users who
are a part of this launch are truly
helping set the foundation for the
innovations of today that will soon
enough become the standards of
tomorrow."
The platform, in partnership
with Nuance, puts Domino's at the
forefront of an intuitive ordering
method that is a first within both
traditional and e-commerce retail,
according to the company.
Domino's new voice ordering
platform is powered by Nuance's
Nina Mobile, an intelligent vir-
tual assistant that leverages speech
recognition, speech synthesis and
natural language understanding
technologies. Together, the plat-
form delivers a human-like, conver-
sational customer service experience
that allows users to speak an order
and quickly add items to their cart.
The platform launches in beta for-
mat, which will allow for additional
enhancements as customers become
familiar with the new ordering
feature.
The Domino's ordering apps for
iPhone and Android, which have
been downloaded more than 10
million times, are both available
for free from the App Store on
iPhone or the Google Play store on
Android devices. Existing iPhone
and Android app users will need
the latest update to utilize the voice
ordering feature.
U.S. Farmers Cash In On
Alfalfa Trade Boom With
China
Faced with dwindling access to
water and arable land, China has
little choice but to turn to U.S.
farmers to help supply feed for the
country's growing herd of dairy
cows, according to news reports.
Since 2009, alfalfa exports to Chi-
na grew nearly eightfold to a record
575,000 tons -- shipped overseas in
the same containers that deliver the
latest iPhones and flat-screen TVs
from Chinese factories.
China has now pushed past
Japan as Asia's biggest buyer of U.S.
alfalfa and is second only to the
United Arab Emirates as the globe's
top importer, according to the
U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA). Sales of alfalfa shipped
abroad amounted to $586 million
last year, part of the nation's record
$144 billion in agricultural exports.
The thriving trade had largely
gone unnoticed, not unlike more
established export oddities to
China such as scrap paper and
chicken feet. But when three years
of drought upended farms in the
West, alfalfa became one of the
most sought-after commodities in
the bovine business.
Cattle ranchers with withered
pastures were now in the market
for the pricey forage, alongside
dairy farmers. At the same time,
production has been steadily
declining in California, replaced
by more profitable crops such as
almonds and wine grapes. The
Golden State produced 6 million
tons of alfalfa hay last year, down
from a high of 8 million in 2002,
according to the USDA. With so
much demand and diminished
supplies, alfalfa prices have doubled
in the last three years to more than
$300 a ton.
Agricultural exports to China
soared to $25.8 billion last year
from $5 billion a decade earlier,
according to the USDA. China is
the biggest buyer of U.S. soybeans,
which is used to feed livestock
and make cooking oil. U.S. dairy
exports to China -- fueled in part
by U.S. alfalfa -- grew to $706 mil-
lion last year, up from $137 million
in 2009, according to the U.S.
Dairy Export Council.
Exporters are learning something
alfalfa shippers have known for
years: it costs little to freight goods
on the back haul to China. That's
because the U.S. runs a persistently
high trade deficit with China that
hit a record $318 billion last year.
Containers from Asia arrive full but
often return empty.
Congress Passes Water
Resources Bill
Water infrastructure projects
across the nation may soon have
access to innovative financing pro-
grams and increased public-private
partnership opportunities, accord-
ing to Sutherland Asbill & Bren-
nan LLP, a law firm with offices
throughout the U.S. House Bill
3080 (2013), known as the Water
Resources Reform and Develop-
ment Act (WRRDA), passed the
U.S. Senate by a vote of 91 to 7.
This action came two days after
the U.S. House of Representatives
approved the bill 412 to 4. The
bill now goes to President Obama
for his expected signature before
becoming law. When signed,
WRRDA would be the first com-
prehensive water resources measure
to become law since November
2007, the law firm noted.
A key provision of the bill
establishes the Water Infrastruc-
ture Finance and Innovation Act
(WIFIA).
WIFIA is a five-year, pilot
federal loan program for water
projects. It will provide low-interest
federal loans to communities to
reduce the cost of financing large
water and wastewater infrastructure
projects.
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