The Supply Chain Buzz is Supply Chain Now’s regular Monday livestream, held at 12n ET each week. This show focuses on some of the leading stories from global supply chain and global business, always with special guests – the most important of which is the live audience!

This week’s edition of The Buzz kicked off with a nod to India’s recent moon landing by celebrating the many innovations that owe their existence to space travel: cordless power tools, filtration systems, and cloud computing.

In this livestream, created in collaboration with a live Supply Chain Now audience, Scott Luton and Greg White discussed:

• Cargo bikes as New York City’s latest answer to commercial cargo congestion as well as a way to decrease emissions

• Yet another pending labor strike – this time the United Autoworkers voting to authorize strikes against the Detroit Three: General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Stellantis

• Tyson’s decision to close half a dozen chicken processing sites in response to operating losses

• Staggering revenue growth at Nvidia thanks to a surge in recent interest in AI

Intro/Outro (00:00:03):

Welcome to Supply Chain. Now, the voice of global supply chain supply chain now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues, the challenges and opportunities. Stay tuned to hear from those Making Global Business happen right here on supply chain now.

Scott Luton (00:00:32):

Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are, Scott Luton and Greg White with you here on Supply Chain. Now welcome to today’s live stream, Gregory. How we doing today?

Greg White (00:00:42):

Pretty darn good, Scott, how are you doing? Doing

Scott Luton (00:00:44):

Wonderful. I am doing wonderful. We’ve had a, a good weekend, albeit a little bit hot, a little bit on the hot side, but we made it through. How about yours?

Greg White (00:00:53):

Uh, good. We’re, uh, you know, um, we’re expecting a, maybe a sideswipe from, uh, Adalia the hurricane coming up out of the Yucatan here. So, um, fortunately we have a couple really astute local weather hawks who, who keep an eye out for us, so we’ll, we’ll see.

Scott Luton (00:01:13):

I saw that and, and I, I read, uh, this morning that it might even, uh, hit, uh, well, category three plus a chance at category four,

Greg White (00:01:23):

Right at Big Bend. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:01:25):

Oh, goodness gracious. Well, we hope that, uh, I guess not cooler winds or, or probably cooler waters prevails. Probably Cooler

Greg White (00:01:31):

Waters prevail. Very good. That’s good thought spot. Yes. Yes.

Scott Luton (00:01:35):

Um, and before we, we continue on, we’re gonna say hello to a few folks. Welcome everybody to the buzz here today. We come, come live every Monday at 12 in Eastern time to cover some of the bigger developments and news across global supply chain, global business. So, welcome, welcome. But Greg, I gotta point out Please

Greg White (00:01:50):

Do. I

Scott Luton (00:01:50):

Gotta point out your T-shirt. It is the pig.

Greg White (00:01:54):

Should I please? Should I model it? <laugh>

Scott Luton (00:01:59):

<laugh>. You’re big. You said pre-show, you’re big on the pig. <laugh>. Yeah.

Greg White (00:02:02):

Piggly Wiggly, the source for the best seafood. No kidding. In Hilton Head, is this old Piggly Wiggly store that has been around, uh, literally for I think, 60 years. <laugh> owned by the same family the entire time. Yes. Um, and of course, because this was originally, I mean, when it was settled most, when it was settled traditionally <laugh> Yeah. Whatever you want to call it, as a, as a, uh, community, um, it was a big shrimping hub. Yes. And so this being the only grocery store has first still, still has first position when the shrimp boats and fishing boats come in to get seafood. And it’s a cute little ex, if you’ve ever shopped in a Piggly wiggly short ceiling, drop ceilings, you know, really old fashioned, um, and, and in a, uh, very touristy kind of mall area. Yes. But the best seafood in Hilton Head, every single person, every single local that I’ve ever spoken to has said, that’s where you go for seafood.

Scott Luton (00:03:12):

Well check it out folks. And if you’re happen to be there, pick up, uh, boil shrimp and put it out right, right after. I mean, it’s like they get it that morning, boil it and put it out. We had a great, they’ll

Greg White (00:03:22):

Do it on request. If you go in there and say, Hey, I need 10 pounds of boiled shrimp. They’ll do it. Okay. I mean, it might take them 30 minutes or whatever, but, you know, I don’t know if people know this. Boiling shrimp is ideally done for about 30 seconds, and, you know, if the shrimp is over boiled, if the shells are hard to get off.

Scott Luton (00:03:41):

How about that? Hmm. See y’all show up for global supply chain and you get, uh, some culinary tips.

Greg White (00:03:46):

Everything is supply chain, everything. That’s right. Supply chain.

Scott Luton (00:03:50):

Don’t mess with our food. Right. All right. So folks, welcome in here today, uh, again, we got a, a great episode of the Supply Chain Buzz. Again, join us every Monday at 12 in Eastern time. And, and if you’re listening, folks, uh, hopefully you’re not only listening, hopefully you’re engaging. So everyone in the cheap seats over in the comments, we wanna hear from you as we tackle these four or five stories here today. And if you’re listening to the podcast replay, which would typically drop the Friday following the Monday, Greg, what would you encourage our listeners of the replay to do?

Greg White (00:04:20):

I would say first, check it out on, on YouTube. Yeah. Uh, I’m stunned, Scott, at how many people consume this on YouTube. But wherever you get your podcasts, if you don’t need to see Scott’s beautiful face, <laugh>, um, yeah. Anywhere you get your, your podcast, but especially YouTube

Scott Luton (00:04:37):

And join us live. Join us live on the Monday, and bring comments and participate,

Greg White (00:04:41):

Send a friend. Would you <laugh>? I mean, I think, don’t you think more people ought to be learning this? Like, look, look at Gino. Gino also knows the pig. Yes. There’s a special angel food cake mix. You can only get there, <laugh>.

Scott Luton (00:04:56):

Man. We’re gonna have to get I did

Greg White (00:04:57):

Not know that. Gene. Thanks, man. <laugh>

Scott Luton (00:04:59):

Gino, thank you for bringing that

Greg White (00:05:01):

Hard. It’s a good, it’s good. It’s special. Yeah. It must be a really good one.

Scott Luton (00:05:05):

Gino, of course, is in North Alabama, uh, where he said there the pig is a staple in their community. I wanna go scroll back up to the top and welcome. Let’s see. Uh, I’m gonna say Dr. Velazco, uh, yeah, Enio, great to have you here from Boston. We’re talking about great seafood, man. Boston’s a a seafood capital in the world, isn’t it, Greg?

Greg White (00:05:24):

It’s the best in the world. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:05:26):

<laugh>. All right. So anyhow, ask, tell me if Greg nailed that accent.

Greg White (00:05:29):

I more like a main accent. Sorry. Sorry.

Scott Luton (00:05:33):

Mohamed tuned in from Egypt via LinkedIn. Great to see you. Uh, Ikenna. Pretty

Greg White (00:05:37):

Good fishing community there as Well’s, right? Egypt, right?

Scott Luton (00:05:40):

That is right. Uh, Ikenna from Nigeria via LinkedIn. Wonderful. Great to see you here. Claudia from Montreal via LinkedIn. Great to see you. Claudia.

Greg White (00:05:49):

Smoked meat sandwich is the specialty. Okay. I mean, kind of fast. Foody specialty in Montreal. Delicious.

Scott Luton (00:05:55):

I’m gonna have to check that out.

Greg White (00:05:57):

St. Catherine Street.

Scott Luton (00:05:59):

Um, jape. I came close. May if I get his name wrong. My apologies. What was that? Greg?

Greg White (00:06:05):

Jafe.

Scott Luton (00:06:06):

Jafe, thank you. Um, from Malawi via LinkedIn. Great to see you here. Of course, my mom Lee Luten from Aiken South Acki is <laugh>. That’s

Greg White (00:06:14):

Kind. We were just talking about your mom, Vicki. That’s right. Was just mentioning your mom.

Scott Luton (00:06:18):

Your ears were burning Marat. Yes.

Greg White (00:06:20):

She should have a picture, by the way, because Vicki said Scott’s mom is so pretty.

Scott Luton (00:06:27):

Oh man. Vicki. Vicki, Vicki. Very nice. Uh, and, and Marat from, uh, Istanbul. Great to see you. Uh, Dr. Velasco says, Scott, you may ruffle a shirt like Greg’s wearing So <laugh>, I I try not to ruffle any feathers or any shirts. Uh, and finally, finally, and know, can’t hit everybody here, Eric from Greg’s backyard. Hey, uh, he’s stalking Greg

Greg White (00:06:49):

<laugh>. Tell him, Hey, Eric, make sure that the yard guys, you know, <laugh>.

Scott Luton (00:06:56):

Oh, man. Well, Eric, welcome and welcome everyone else. I know we could hit everybody. Great to have everyone here. I want to share, as always, as we, we start the buzz in earnest as we get past culinary and storms, and you name it, we wanna share some resources, right? We wanna share some resources with all of y’all. Now, this was neat, Greg, over the weekend to boldly explore and do good mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we were celebrating, um, of course India’s incredible feats related to its space program. And kind of on the hills of that, we dove in and, and talked about some of the, um, the developments on earth that mm-hmm. <affirmative> space programs have given us that a lot of folks may or may not know. And I’m, so I’m just gonna walk through a couple of these and folks you can check out link, read it for yourself. Cordless power tools, right? Tim Toman. Taylor probably was really happy with that water. What’s that, Greg? Sorry,

Greg White (00:07:46):

That was Tim. Oh, <laugh>.

Scott Luton (00:07:50):

What are purification systems? All from nasa, digital image sensors, cloud computing. There’s a case to be made, uh, fire resistant materials, as you might expect, insulin pumps. And while NASA did not develop solar cell technology, you could argue that they kept it alive to the point. Now it’s being used, you know, globally. Greg, you’re quick. Well, I

Greg White (00:08:10):

Think you’re overlooking perhaps the greatest invention for the, for the space program. Yes. Velcro, which is how they kept the tools from floating around the, the cabin that

Scott Luton (00:08:21):

Is right. While not

Greg White (00:08:21):

Being used. Yep.

Scott Luton (00:08:23):

Uh, that is such a great call out. Well, you know what, to Greg’s point, there’s a litany of things. Yeah. That a lot. I think a lot of folks, when they think of space, it’s like, why are we investing all that money there? It really pays off big dividends on so many different levels. And again, I wanna wrap this segment by encouraging folks not only to check out with that said, but big, high five to all of our friends across India. Uh, you inspire the rest of us. Yeah. And Greg, we love seeing the celebrations in the streets and everywhere across India. Wasn’t that cool? Yeah.

Greg White (00:08:53):

Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. It’s, it’s great to have, you know, it had become kind of blase in the States where you almost didn’t even, most people didn’t even know we were doing a launch. But I remember as a kid when it was still really interesting and a big moment for us as America, and I think India is where we were then. So that is, that’s awesome to see. It

Scott Luton (00:09:12):

Really is, really is big things to come. Um, okay. Speaking of resources, also wanna share tomorrow, Greg and I have got a wonderful live stream with our friend Alexia Smith with dispatch. Now, Greg, we’re gonna be diving into all sorts of different ways to, uh, proven ways to optimize final Mile. But one of the things I’m looking forward to with our discussion is dispatch has been ranked time and time again, um, as one of the best places to work, um, by a variety of different surveys and polls and awards. And man, these days, creating an outstanding place for your team to work and thrive in is so critical. But we’re gonna talk about a lot tomorrow. Greg, your thoughts on tomorrow’s live event.

Greg White (00:09:55):

You know, final Mile is the biggest challenge in direct to consumer or any kind of e-commerce, because I mean, there are all kinds of unique experiences in getting that to the final mile. I mean, I’ve lived in Kansas, <laugh>, right? That final mile in Kansas is about a hundred miles in some place. Seriously, <laugh>. And, you know, I, I live on an island now, so, I mean, there are all kinds of unique situations like that, Hilltop communities, right? That’s all kinds of things that are really challenging. So the more you can diversify in that area, the better off you are in being able to meet that customer expectation, which now is a day or two. Hmm. Right? And I gotta tell you, um, you know, when we go back and forth between Atlanta and Hilton Head, there’s always something that needs done, right? And you’ve just landed wherever you are and, and you just instinctively go buy it on, on the web and just expect it in the next couple days. So, uh, and it works. It really is impressive how well it works. So, um, agreed

Scott Luton (00:11:04):

More than we deserve.

Greg White (00:11:05):

There are so many ways to get there. I think, you know, some of these alternative companies to the big carriers, it’s a, it’s a huge opportunity. And we’re about to talk to, talk about some conditions that some of the big carriers that might make this a risk management, uh, methodology for you.

Scott Luton (00:11:24):

Very nice. Uh, first half of that segue, and I’ll finish it with, speaking of final mile mm-hmm. <affirmative>, move into our first store year on the supply chain buzz. Hey, according to our friends at Supply Chain dive outstanding, uh, resource over there, cargo bikes are getting bigger in New York City. Now, Greg,

Greg White (00:11:43):

Physically bigger Scott, or just kidding, <laugh>,

Scott Luton (00:11:47):

For years, New York City officials have been looking for practical ways to get a handle on truck traffic, as well as find ways to practically decrease emissions. Now, in 2019, all of this led to a commercial cargo bike pilot program that the city conducted with in partnership with U P s, FedEx, Amazon, and D H L. Now, the pilot has gone so well, Greg, that city officials want to make the cargo bikes bigger. It’s kind of interesting, at least in my view. So currently cargo bikes are limited to 36 inches wide and only three wheels. But taking a page outta the European playbook, a new rule has been proposed allowing the cargo bikes to become more like cargo golf carts, allowing for 48 inches wide. And a fourth wheel, uh, a virtual public hearing has been scheduled by New York City’s Department of Transportation for mid-September before, uh, they vote the rule in or out. Greg, love to get your thoughts here. Well,

Greg White (00:12:45):

Have you ever driven New York City streets? I mean, if you have half a brain, you, your answer should be no. But I have <laugh>, <laugh>,

Greg White (00:12:55):

Foolishly, foolishly. I have done that. It is incredibly frustrating, um, even in the morning because, you know, they have to load in all the restaurants and things every day. And these kind of packages, you know, there’s an entire bicycle company built around the bikes that messengers, they’re called bike messengers, the bike that these bike messengers use, right? And so, it’s become a big culture. So something like this is really powerful there, beneficial, necessary, because there are enough hindrances to traffic in, in the city. Um, you sure don’t need a bunch of big trucks going around if you, in, if you can, in any case, avoid it. That’s, that’s right. Right. There’s some situations where you can’t, but if you can’t avoid it, you should. And I’m a big proponent of the fourth wheel because sharp corners, um, you know, on ice or other slick surfaces, that third wheel is a, it’s a real liability. So that fourth wheel, I think, is important. If they can make it practical by making those things bigger, I, I say, go for it. Yep.

Scott Luton (00:13:59):

Well, uh, they’re talking about how they’re gonna have to widen the, all the bike lanes that exist without New York City. They’ll have to widen those as well. So we shall see.

Greg White (00:14:08):

So we still get to use the bike lanes. Oh, I did not. Oh, I see. Yes. Now I get it. How about

Scott Luton (00:14:14):

That? Okay. And they can also use these things can also use as a, as article, uh, shares, uh, the loading zones that are usually typically reserved for, you know, trucks and, and, and cargo vans, all that stuff. They get to tap in all those two, those things as well.

Greg White (00:14:29):

Loading zones, that’s laughable. <laugh>, any, any east west street on Manhattan, might as well just be a loading zone <laugh> from like seven o’clock to 10 o’clock in the morning. I mean, they’re all one lane. Yes. In one truck. And <laugh> and then, and on one, it’s one on this side at this intersection and one truck on that side before you weaving through. I, I mean, I’d love to hear a New Yorker’s comment on this. Yes,

Scott Luton (00:14:56):

Please. Although

Greg White (00:14:57):

It would likely be profane and deservedly so.

Scott Luton (00:15:00):

Right. So folks, if you’ve driven, if you’re in New York City now and you wanna, uh, comment about the traffic, or, uh, if you’ve driven as Greg has, and I, I, we relied on Ubers last time. We went last summer as a family of five, the only way

Greg White (00:15:13):

To do it.

Scott Luton (00:15:13):

Yeah. I didn’t drive anywhere. It was great. Um, Hey, get this. Raquel says, the bikes look great, but how about some tinted windows? That’s a good point.

Greg White (00:15:21):

Darn Skippy. Yeah. Some spinners, I think anything make them look cool.

Scott Luton (00:15:27):

Like Caddy shack. Uh, Steve says, I first saw these cargo bikes in India, rickshaws. They caught ’em. Yeah, it’s good. Call out Steve. Good call out

Greg White (00:15:35):

Rickshaws. There’s another term that I forgot. They use them in, they use ’em for the same thing in Zurich, in Switzer in a lot of European cities now, too. Um, okay. Gosh, I cannot remember what it’s called.

Scott Luton (00:15:47):

Well, we will see if someone can rescue your, uh, vocabulary. What do they call them? Yeah. What, what country was that? Greg?

Greg White (00:15:54):

Switzerland.

Scott Luton (00:15:55):

Switzerland.

Greg White (00:15:56):

Well, I mean, it, it’s from another Asian country that they, they took the, the terminology idea from.

Scott Luton (00:16:03):

Yeah. Gotcha. All right. So folks, we’ll see the, as the jury’s out, and they propose these bigger, uh, cargo, what will be, uh, cargo carts, maybe? Uh, let’s move on to the second story, Greg. I’ll tell you, it has been the year we had a guest, I believe. Um, it could have been Mike Griswold, the year, the year of the workforce. Uh, someone, someone coined it. Um, yeah,

Greg White (00:16:26):

That was Mike.

Scott Luton (00:16:27):

What’s it, Mike? Yeah. So it’s certainly been the year of workforce negotiations, uh, workforce troubles, you name it. Now, as Reuters reports, this is gonna continue because the United Auto Workers Labor Union has now voted overwhelmingly as you might expect to authorize strikes at the Detroit Big three. The current four year contract labor contract expires on September 14th between the U A W and General Motors, Ford Motor Company and STIs. Now we’re talking 150,000 workers total. So not quite the, I can’t remember what the total was for the U p s was recently settled, but there’s a lot more. Um, U a w President Sean Fain is demanding several things, Greg, including 46% wage hikes and an end to the tiered wage system that pays veteran employees more than new hires. Now, industry analysts give the strike a 50 50 shot of happening, very technical, technical analysis there now, man, as just as we are seeing actual cars and trucks, Greg, on dealerships, and there are lots around the country, potential disruption ahead. Your thoughts,

Greg White (00:17:35):

Um, as you <laugh> as usual, the unions are half a century behind. Um, all they’re gonna do is assure that these jobs are automated. If I know that they have to put an extreme value out there to get what they want. This is such an old fashioned, backwards way of negotiating. And I’m frankly frustrated by it. It’s, it’s a shame that we can’t be authentic, right? And I think, I think even the, the automotive companies are more capable of being authentic than these unions. But these unions have to make these grand gestures, kind of like politicians, largely lies and, you know, to, to, um, whatever, to win the favor of their, of their constituency, and to justify the exorbitant fees that these people, people pay to these unions to get them these periodic upli uplifts. But all this is gonna do, I mean, this is my great fear.

Greg White (00:18:36):

I can’t say that this is definite, probably definite <laugh>. This is my great fear, is that just imagine we raise, we raise wages 46%. What do you think companies are gonna do? Do you think they’re gonna keep paying people who they can’t count on a hundred percent. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the workers, but workers are humans and humans are, are fallible. Right? That may not show up for work, may not do their work in, you know, in a, um, optimal fashion, et cetera, et cetera. All of those things that you have to worry about with, with, with human beings that you don’t have to worry about with a robot. Mm. Right? And now you’re paying 46%. That makes a much better economic case for automation. I mean, I think this, these kind of threats lead to the loss of my job, right?

Greg White (00:19:31):

Or the exporting it overseas, which now is not very popular and Right. Frankly, a little bit dangerous. But, um, that’s my biggest concern. Will they get it? I doubt it. Will they get some of it? Probably Will the auto workers, or, or sorry, will the, uh, automotive companies, or have they already started to provision for these wage uplifts? Yeah, absolutely. And all this will do is I think, accelerate the move towards automation. This is my great concern. So once you get your 46% uplift in wages, start training for another job, because yours won’t be around for very long.

Scott Luton (00:20:10):

Uh, Greg, uh, as excellent commentary. Now, two things, two things. Uh, y’all check out the article because in the article to represent both sides, uh, the union says they have, uh, given up and given up and given up for, for two decades. And this is, they’re trying to put an end into that by reclaiming some of that. That’s what the report says. And then secondly, to Greg’s point, I wanna, I wanna, uh, uh, largely agree with him because a deal’s gonna get done right. And it may be another, another four year deal. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But to Greg’s point, the big three and beyond their supply base will use these four years to find, uh, expedited automation approach. So they’re not in this same position, or at least at not as bad of a position four years from now. Greg, I’ll give you the final word here before we, uh, continue on.

Greg White (00:20:55):

Yeah. So, like many cities in Atlanta, I’ve lived in Detroit, um, and I have a lot of empathy for the auto workers and for, and, you know, for years they’ve really earned their money. Now, I’m not saying that they don’t earn their money, right? But I don’t think anybody, anywhere, ever on the planet in the history of man has ever earned a 46% wage hike. Mm-hmm. And the truth is, if the unions have, have given for years, years, and now expect to be, to get this great leap forward, they are ignoring the fact that they are working against economics, because economics are fact, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they’re truth. And you can’t work against that. What, what the economics are telling us is that, you know, these jobs aren’t worth 46% more or aren’t worth whatever. I mean, just like anything, right? At some point, people won’t pay $13 for a dozen eggs, right? Right. They’ll stop buying eggs or <laugh>, they’ll, right, right. Or they’ll waste the price to go down, which is what most of us did. Um, so I think we have to understand that there are forces outside of any, any, um, what do I wanna say, uh, nefarious right? Or even altruistic forces out there. They’re just forces like economics that, that produce a certain reality and you can’t push against that reality at some point. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:22:21):

Excellent point.

Greg White (00:22:22):

So the, the, I mean, the world economics economic truth is, is telling you the story. Yeah. So 46% unlikely if they get it, it, it might be just to allow the automakers to go and, and focus on this automation initiative will largely eliminate any production job and, and leave only the specialty jobs. Right?

Scott Luton (00:22:46):

I imagine their target is 20% and they’re jumping out with, uh, more than double as they negotiate, but, uh,

Greg White (00:22:51):

20% is huge. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:22:53):

Agreed. Uh, agreed. Um, but you just, your, your first comment there about, um, how no one in the history of humankind is worth the 46%. It reminded me back when I was in, I think I was in high school, Greg and our local council, county council voted for themselves to have a 100% pay increase mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I was beside myself. And, uh, my mom gave me a box of my stuff here recently, and I wrote a letter, this was of course, long before email to several of the council members, and some of them defended and sent me back responses. And the logic was, as you might imagine, ludicrous. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So we <laugh>. So, but man, back in the day. Um, but folks, we’ll keep our finger on the pulse. Uh, hopefully we can find some common ground as always here, and we’ll see what happens. Um, alright, I wanna go back to a couple comments here. I’m

Greg White (00:23:48):

Gonna go back and somebody, somebody nailed that, um, other vehicle that I was talking about, by the

Scott Luton (00:23:53):

Way. Yes. Was it? Uh, Tuk. Tuk. Okay. I wonder who that is. Uh, uh, so, Amanda, Catherine, first off, thank you for making production happen. If, if you know who that LinkedIn user is, let us know. Iio says, cargo bikes are also in Indonesia beaches, going back to the first one. Big

Greg White (00:24:09):

Time. Big time. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:24:11):

Raquel got a kick outta your spinners comment there. And she also says, <laugh>, the strike is really bad timing, and the demands are a little high. I agree with that. I know

Greg White (00:24:21):

That little is tongue in cheek. Raquel, thank you. That’s you, you’re not wrong.

Scott Luton (00:24:26):

<laugh> Sylvia says, whilst Sylvia, you are very proper communicator, whilst others. She, she says, that’s very old English <laugh>. Don’t even get a 4.6% wage increase. A 46% increase is deadly. Remember 2008

Greg White (00:24:41):

We’re about to be remembering it. Yes.

Scott Luton (00:24:43):

Yeah. No kidding. And, and probably not a good way. And by the way, that was Pablo, Pablo came through with the tuk.

Greg White (00:24:50):

Yeah. Thank you, Pablo. That’s awesome. Great to have you here with us, Pablo. Got, yep. So

Scott Luton (00:24:54):

We’re gonna take a quick break, Greg, ’cause we’re all about resources here, and we’ve got two, we’ve got a slew of upcoming live events, and we wanna make sure we put this on y’all’s radar. Speaking of last, last mile, last mile delivery, and all the inherent new and old challenges related to that, coming up on September 21st, hard to believe we’re almost in September, we’re gonna be featuring Luke, pat, and Bart to talk about unlocking the power of diversification in last mile delivery. Quick comment from you, Greg.

Greg White (00:25:23):

Well, I mean, we just talked about the merits of last mile. I, I think <laugh> every opportunity you can get to learn more about Last Mile, do it. Mm-hmm. Um, even if, even if just as a consumer, it’s important to know how companies are accomplishing this because you can evaluate their reliability, frankly. That’s right. I mean, um, you know, we, we have this, um, this Spirits brand, right? This Yeah. Non-alcoholic spirits brand free spirit. Yeah. And, um, you know, we’re, uh, raising funding right now and we have a ton of companies who are in traditional industries, wine and spirits. Yep. Who are really interested in, in what we’re doing, because we made such a great splash in e-commerce and direct to consumer. And, um, and that has been a really, really big challenge. I have a very good friend who is invested in a ton of companies there.

Greg White (00:26:15):

He calls D T C A Wasteland. And that’s because the cost of customer acquisition vis-a-vis things like, um, Facebook ads and various ads like that, they become very, very prohibitive. And you have to start to economize not, not only on how you acquire customers, but how you deliver to those customers in order to make it a profitable enterprise. Hmm. So, you know, if you’re out there and you’ve got a, a personal brand or a direct to consumer brand, or just an e-commerce site, even if you’re just one of those drop shippers, it’s helpful to know who, whoever is moving your goods for you. Right. It’s helpful to know what your alternatives are and the costs and reliability trade-offs thereof. Well

Scott Luton (00:27:00):

Said, Greg. Opportunities to diversify to find more success with last Mile deliver. Join us on September 21st for that live session. Folks, no recorded webinars. These are live. So bring your voice, bring your pack of Turkey sandwich and come join us. <laugh>. Uh, then we’ve got <laugh> as Greg and Greg, who knows, maybe part of what you were sharing might be relevant for this conversation as well, because on the 26th of September, got a really unique conversation, teed up three proven strategies to level up your business with the dynamo that is Walmart. And I would argue, Greg, that if you can be really successful with working with Walmart, man, you’ve got all kinds of universal takeaways you can apply to other relationships. Your thoughts, Greg,

Greg White (00:27:41):

No one, no one in the world is more organized, more, um, demanding and I would argue more partnering than Walmart. I can’t believe I’m saying that, Scott <laugh>. Um, but you know, again, we just, we just had this experience at Free Spirits where we went to Bentonville. I did not personally go, but the c e o and our head of sales went, um, and unbelievable what they can do for you with a snap of a finger. I mean, they quadrupled the business in a meeting. Wow. And that’s both, that’s both an exciting <laugh> and

Scott Luton (00:28:17):

Horrifying, <laugh>

Greg White (00:28:19):

Horrifying thought at the same time. Because you’re like, are we ready for this? Right? Yes. But they, but as long as you, as long as you communicate these things and you’re realistic with them, they go, okay, we’ll make it over the next two years and give you time to get there. Right. I

Scott Luton (00:28:33):

Love it.

Greg White (00:28:33):

But, and so the point of that is, if you can learn anything from how Walmart conducts business in general, and especially how they tie directly tie merchandising and product management into supply chain, it is seamless for them. Take the opportunity to learn. That’s, and that’s what this, this next one is about,

Scott Luton (00:28:55):

Folks. We’ve got links to both of those webinars, uh, those live webinars in the chat. Check it out. And hey, uh, if you register and you can’t make it last minute ’cause you’re saving global supply chains, hey, no worries. You’ll get the recording, uh, probably same day. Uh, so y’all check that out. Um, okay. I was about, oh, one last thing here before we move to our third story. Mm-hmm. Greg, as I’ll share me. And Amanda had the wonderful opportunity of ha of Breaking Bread with Tonya Jackson with Lexmark, uh, Saturday morning in, in Atlanta in the Highlands at, uh, Murphy’s, which is still 20 years after my first visit there. Oh, that’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Greg White (00:29:28):

Breakfast and lunch there. Outstanding. Oh,

Scott Luton (00:29:31):

<laugh>. I’ll eat it all. But we were talking about our consumer experiences and some of the lessons we learned as supply chain practitioners. And Tanya is a big, I mean, what Walmart is just so captivating. I find, I don’t know about you, Greg. I find where Walmart is today. Do you remember about five years ago, probably as we were having some of our first conversations here, Amazon was like in every conversation, it was just fascinating. And practitioners and consumers like want to focus there personally. I find that to be where Walmart is today because of how they have not only caught up, but in many ways, I would argue not in all but many ways, they’re setting the bar, uh, doing some really cool things. And Amanda, I cannot remember the program that you and Tanya were talking about that really just hit it outta the park for consumer experience. Maybe Amanda will drop that in the chat. But really Walmart kudos to what they’re doing and how they’re moving mountains in a real way that impacts our experience as consumers. Greg, your final work?

Greg White (00:30:26):

No question. I mean, I am a, whatever, whatever they call it now, a w plus member because, ’cause I’m cheap. Okay. <laugh>. And my, one of my cards pays me back for being a member. Okay. Um, but the benefit is incredible. It’s kind of like, uh, it’s kind of like prime actually. It is like prime. You get some TV channels and all kinds of stuff there, huh? Um, Walmart

Scott Luton (00:30:49):

Plus, that’s what Amanda’s just confirming what’s

Greg White (00:30:51):

Called Okay. Yeah. Walmart plus. And, um, and I, I would argue that except for in e-commerce, they have always been ahead of Amazon. Yeah. Because they were doing what was called C P F R. Right. Collaborative Planning, forecasting and Replenishment. They were doing that back in the nineties. Mm. And they were bringing their vendors into share data with them so that they could service them better. Yep. And, um, that was quite the storm in supply chain in the nineties, late, mid, late nineties. Um, and, and they have really taken it to the next level. They’ve got, you know, new tools that they share with suppliers and that sort of thing. But you’re right, I, I think the only place you could even argue Walmart was ever behind was in e-commerce. And, you know, they might be catching up or caught up with, oh, Amazon, I don’t know. But they are an unstoppable force. And I can’t believe we’re saying this, I think back to literally decades and decades ago when people’s people didn’t want Walmarts in their, in their neighborhood. Right. Right. Um, but I, I mean, I, I would argue that they are, they are in first place because they are the best. And everyone, every single retailer, yes. Coffee bill as goes Walmart, so goes retail,

Scott Luton (00:32:10):

<laugh>, man. It’s part of the Walmart team. Y’all feel really good. Uh, and speaking of their team, man sounds like it,

Greg White (00:32:16):

Doesn’t it?

Scott Luton (00:32:17):

They have, they have triple down <laugh> quadrupled down on, on, on going after talent and bringing ’em in from all, you know, from, from all their competitors. Right. It’s really been an interesting thing to watch. So, Greg, I look forward to more of your, uh, the team, the board’s experiences as they, um, they have those conversations with, uh, Walmart. Okay. So Greg, this is gonna, there’s, there’s a lot of common themes between these conversations we’re having here today. And we are talking next. We’re talking about Tyson. Now, this is an interesting story. So Tyson is closing half a dozen chicken processing sites in four states, unfortunately, laying off about 4,600 workers. Now, this as American demand for chicken seems to not be wa waning at all. Just getting stronger and stronger in the bigger picture. Greg, a little background here. US chicken consumption surpassed beef, uh, beef, not beef.

Scott Luton (00:33:12):

Beef in 1993, never looked back. And in 2023, Americans are forecasted to eat over 100 pounds of chicken on average, not in one meal, compared to only less than 60 pounds of beef in recent months, though, uh, as we’ve fought through these inflationary times, retailers and their executives like Costco and let’s call, have been reporting that it’s customers are choosing even more chicken and pork over beef, uh, due to, uh, inflation concerns and other things. And here’s a little that’s right. Now get this, Greg, this is an interesting factoid. Popeye’s, which is one of the makers of absolutely dli delicious fried chicken. Greg, did, you know, it’s tripled. It sells over the last five years, undoubtedly spurred, uh, spurred on by the chicken sandwich wars, which every restaurant seems like they have jumped in. So on the whole, the entire poultry industry has been hit, of course, in terms of challenges with the avian flu outbreak. Uh, of course increasing grain prices for, um, a variety of different fa uh, reasons, including unfortunately the rage, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But Tyson in particular lost 417 million bucks last quarter. And as it closes these six older plants, it is opening at least two new plants, which I bet will leverage a lot more automation as a company has committed to investing over a billion dollars in automation, which announced back in 2021. So Greg, uh, your thoughts on this development at Tyson and its move forward?

Greg White (00:34:44):

Well, Tyson, Tyson is ruthlessly efficient. And, um, some of these were, um, older highly manual plants with highly, relatively highly paid workers relative to automation. You’re right, this is a very circular discussion, right, isn’t it? As wages go up, automation becomes more and more palatable. Right. More and more necessary, frankly. So I think that, um, Tyson would never put themselves in a position to not be able to fulfill demand. They are, as I said, ruthlessly efficient, heavy on the ruthless part. Yes. Um, um, I mean, we saw some of the actions that they took early on in the pandemic when, you know, saying something was gonna kill their business, which of course you can’t kill Tyson. You can only injure them for a short while. <laugh>. Uh, but yeah, I think, um, this is a, um, this is a harbinger of things to come, right, right.

Greg White (00:35:42):

As companies must get more efficient at higher and higher wages, which is all wages have been doing over the last two, two and a half years. So, um, batting down the hatches workers, right. Get your skills up. Right. And, and if you’re in a production job, uh, man, you better be the best at it. That’s all I gotta say. And I, I can’t believe I have to say this, but in the office is gonna be better than the out of the office. Someone who’s work you can’t see and is difficult to quantify, um, is a lot easier to let go. And, and, um, this, I mean, we’re not philosophizing here, gang. I mean, we hear from a lot of companies that are making their hiring, firing staff reductions, what they call whiff decisions based on the most productive and the most engaged. And engaged now includes back to the office in a lot of cases for some of these companies. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:36:44):

Well said Greg. Whenever Greg uses the word gang in his commentary, you better listen twice as hard. ’cause it’s usually that’s not

Greg White (00:36:54):

<laugh>.

Scott Luton (00:36:54):

There’s goodness there. Uh, a lot of truth there. And of course, um, one thing I’ll call out, uh, and I’ll get, there’s a couple comments here, but, um, Tyson is, seems like they’re doing the right thing with these 4,600 workers. They’re, uh, bringing them job fairs and they’re trying to connect with other employers, or even, I think, I think I read they’re even paying for like Uber fair to get these workers to different places to help them find jobs. So, and I think it’s important to note not only Greg, as you know, uh, and these 4,600 folks unfortunately are hit, but I mean, suppliers, communities are devastated, you know, uh, because these are such, I I think

Greg White (00:37:29):

They’re often in very small towns, these plants, right?

Scott Luton (00:37:32):

Like 31 of these communities was like 30% of the, of the, uh, the workforce, the county workforce was, um, reminds

Greg White (00:37:38):

You of the furniture days in and the, and the, um, military days, the linen, linen factories and whatnot in, in the Carolinas, right? That’s

Scott Luton (00:37:47):

Right. Yep. Uh, in fact, also, Mack Truck had a big plant in Fairfield County, just, just, uh, north of, uh, Columbia where my aunt and uncle lived. And man, when Mack Truck went through a lot of the stuff, it, it really impacted a bunch of folks. Yeah. Uh, Gino. Yes. They were older plants. That’s my understanding there. Six plants shut down and some of them, if not all of them, were older plants they had acquired from, uh, competitors and whatnot. Mm-hmm. Um, yes. Can he eat more chicken? Great to see you here. Uh,

Greg White (00:38:13):

I love chicken <laugh>. Do you like chicken Scott?

Scott Luton (00:38:15):

Yes. I eat chicken. Like nobody’s business, right? Well, you know,

Greg White (00:38:19):

I was brought, I was brought up in the Midwest, so you were brought up probably more on chicken than I was. I was brought up on beef big time. Right. Eat more beef <laugh>. You didn’t even have to say that in Kansas. It was just assumed. It’s

Scott Luton (00:38:32):

What’s for dinner. I

Greg White (00:38:33):

Love chicken. I don’t, I I mean, it is just, it, it can be flavored anyway, I don’t know. I love it.

Scott Luton (00:38:39):

I do too. I’m with you, man. You’re making me hungry. Uh, let’s see here, a couple quick comments.

Greg White (00:38:43):

Alright. Before I came on <laugh>. So

Scott Luton (00:38:45):

Kenny also says, automation is no longer a choice, but necessity. Kenny, well preach that

Greg White (00:38:51):

Brother. That is it. It it is at these rates, at these labor rates. I mean, it comes down strictly to productivity, right?

Scott Luton (00:38:59):

That’s right. Uh, Sylvia be engaged. Invisible. Well said Greg. I agree. Steve says, get your skills up. So true, Greg. Absolutely. Um, all right, so, and Gino also says all fresh processors are looking at how to do the same. You know, Greg, that’s a great comment. Uh, Gino, Greg, when Tyson first, as I recall first made that announcement about automation, we mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we covered, it was a, it was in the Wall Street Journal and we, we talked about it on the buzz. And as I remember, one their aims, one of their many aims was how it can get that yield up, um, for, for less bucks. And some of the dangerous, as you know, some of these processing jobs are so dangerous. Yeah. And so many workers get hurt. Um, yeah. So we’ll see how this continues to evolve. Uh, I hope the 4,600 folks certainly find new opportunities and, um, I will go forward. Um, alright. So Greg, this

Greg White (00:39:55):

Is a great country. what’s right. This is a great country. They will find. That’s right. You know, I mean, I, I come from a, a town where as went the aircraft industry. So went the entire city of Wichita, Kansas. Right. And it became one of the most entrepreneurial cities, people starting gigs in that industry and other industries just to survive. That’s right. Right. And, um, I honestly, I was raised on that spirit and if a city like Wichita who could literally lose 40% of its workforce just like that. Yep. If, if a city like Wichita can do it, I think, you know, just about anywhere can

Scott Luton (00:40:32):

I’m with you. And that’s a great story. We, you know, we’re gonna have to, we need to, um, it’s been a while since we kind of did a deep dive in, in Wichita. We need to, um, we need to visit Wichita and get some of that story because they, it’s a pretty incredible some of the cool things going on in Wichita. Now

Greg White (00:40:46):

You’ve been talking to my mother, haven’t you <laugh> visit Wichita?

Scott Luton (00:40:49):

Not since

Greg White (00:40:50):

I’m doing that. Um, next week. So

Scott Luton (00:40:54):

Yes. Uh,

Greg White (00:40:55):

I’ll be in Wichita, Kansas for three days. <laugh>,

Scott Luton (00:40:59):

Gina says poultry and processors very, and all processors are very resilient. You are right. Uh, uh, Greg Raquel says, the people make it great, but sadly our politicians dot, dot, dot. I think we all know what means.

Greg White (00:41:15):

Yeah. Raquel, don’t gimme, gimme. Seriously.

Scott Luton (00:41:19):

It’ll be on fire around here. But Raquel hey, welcome. Raquel’s making. Yeah,

Greg White (00:41:23):

I like her commentary. Yeah, I do too. Everybody is on fire today. I gotta wonder if Kenny is, you know, he’s talking about this topic. Yes. So I wonder if Kenny is one of the Cargills or if that’s just coincidental, you know. Okay.

Scott Luton (00:41:38):

I don’t know. We’ll, to check it

Greg White (00:41:39):

Out, car huge. I mean, obviously a huge processor, right? And really big in Wichita for sure.

Scott Luton (00:41:46):

One, I’m glad you mentioned Wichita. One more comment here. This is from Catherine. Catherine says that series title of sharing, these, these, uh, the Phoenix story from Wichita should be entitled Witching Hour in Wichita. The Story of the Airplane Industry Taking Flight, Catherine Just In Time for Halloween. Love it. All right, one more departure, Greg, before we hit our fourth story here today. Uh, if we haven’t made you hungry yet, I want to make you hungry. Check this out. So over the weekend, Greg, we went old school. Oh man. We broke out the, our charcoal, uh, grill and we spent about three hours grilling his baby back ribs, me and Ben, my son Ben. And we fought the heat, we fought the flies, we fought the rain. Um, the Crept myrtles were, were letting go of their flowers into our barbecue sauce. We were fighting all of it, but it was worth it, Greg. ’cause these things were delicious. So as I was diving into this Tyson story and looking at the beef and the pork and the chicken industries. Yep. Man, it just made me hungry. I’m gonna have to eat, eat. We had four ribs left over from two racks, Greg. Wow. The whole family of five. How about that? That’s

Greg White (00:42:55):

Pretty strong. That’s a pretty strong, yeah, that’s pretty strong entry right there. Alright,

Scott Luton (00:43:00):

<laugh>. So I get the blue ribbon from, uh, the judge Greg White. Those

Greg White (00:43:04):

Look fantastic. They really do look fantastic, man. You, you know, you put anything on a rib <laugh> to a kid from Kansas and <laugh> it looks delicious. Okay. No, that, that looks, those are great.

Scott Luton (00:43:16):

Well, we’re gonna get together, we’ll do some of that. Uh,

Greg White (00:43:18):

Any secrets or, or any open secrets that you can share regarding your rub or sauce or however you did it?

Scott Luton (00:43:25):

Yeah, uh, I, I’ll, I’ll share one. So I’m, we are, we are of the minority probably in the rib eating population. I don’t like it falling off the bone. I like a little tug on the rib. Right. So we’re in the, okay, we’re in the very small. Um, and so to do that, but beyond the rub, we, we, we, uh, put ’em on charcoal grill. We cook ’em Really? We cook ’em fast. You’ve heard some folks putting ribs on for like overnight and rest of the day. Yeah. Not here. We cook ’em, uh, fast and with rub with sauce and they got some tug on it. And you know, some, some of these, um, uh, when you get it right, when you really get it right, even after the meat’s gone, you’re not done yet because <laugh>, you were getting every morsel. So no, no big secret other than find

Greg White (00:44:11):

Some good help. I can, I can envision it. Yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about. Okay,

Scott Luton (00:44:15):

Good. And the, so the no big secret there, but you do want to do it with good company and with some good help. And Ben did a great job over the weekend. So more, more stories to come maybe from the, uh, the charcoal grill, uh, weekend, uh, adventures here at Luten household. Nothing

Greg White (00:44:32):

More satisfying than eating that meal that you just cooked and then taking your shower.

Scott Luton (00:44:37):

Oh man. <laugh>. And in this, in this 127 degree heat, Greg.

Greg White (00:44:41):

Right.

Scott Luton (00:44:42):

On a charcoal grill, I think I lost 12 pounds.

Greg White (00:44:45):

Well, there you go. Not many people can say that when they eat ribs. <laugh>,

Scott Luton (00:44:50):

Uh, let’s see here. You asked Kenny something

Greg White (00:44:52):

If he was ate one of the Cargills Ah, and he said no affiliation up there. Okay. That’s alright. That’s a shame because that would be a nice little check every year, wouldn’t it? It

Scott Luton (00:45:02):

Would. And to, to folks. Do y’all listening, Kenny Cargill is one of our commenters on the live show here today. I was thinking not of Cargill, I was thinking of, uh, uh, what was the name of the, uh, Kenny Rogers, uh, chain of chicken restaurants like Kenny Roasters or something like that. Greg

Greg White (00:45:21):

Rogers roasters. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Luton (00:45:23):

Uh, that’s, that’s what I was thinking of when Kenny,

Greg White (00:45:24):

You were thinking Kenny. I see. I go immediately to Cargill because Gotcha. Wichita, Kansas.

Scott Luton (00:45:29):

Yes, yes. Yes. Kenny Rogers roasters. Kenny Rogers roasters. That, that was, uh, it, uh, flamed out fast. Uh, it was delicious.

Greg White (00:45:37):

Yeah. Well, did you have their chicken?

Scott Luton (00:45:38):

I never did.

Greg White (00:45:39):

Yeah. Well, if you had, you’d know what <laugh>. Okay.

Scott Luton (00:45:42):

All right. We’re gonna keep driving folks. We got, we’re gonna take a big hard right turn because we’re gonna talk about semiconductors after all this food discussion here today. Now Greg, as reported by our friends at the Wall Street Journal, and folks, if you aren’t getting the logistics report from the Wall Street Journal, you’re missing out. It’s a really, uh, comprehensive great read. Comes out every weekday morning about 7:00 AM Eastern time. Anyway, the Nvidia team is breaking growth records left and right. Thanks. In part, Greg, to of course, all this interest in AI right now, this chip designer and provider, ’cause they don’t make chips at Nvidia, set a new quarterly revenue record in the most recently completed quarter doubling sales year over year, making Nvidia a trillion dollar company, man, Nvidia placed Betts on AI for more than a decade. And man, is it paying off now its advanced chips are behind or powering a variety of popular AI tools rolled out by companies such as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and others.

Scott Luton (00:46:42):

Speaking of politicians, I didn’t know that, uh, our politicians knew about chat G B T Greg, but we’ll save that for another <laugh> another time. Um, one analyst claims that Nvidia has cornered about 70% of the AI chip market. Now, important to note, as I mentioned, all the success, despite the fact that NVIDIA doesn’t make its chips, it designs ’em, and then outsources production to companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The US government, of course, has limited NVIDIA’s ability to sell its most advanced chips to China, which I find that to be intriguing given, you know, the relationship with T SS M C and Nvidia, even that more intriguing, given that of course, NVIDIA’s supplier’s ability, as we all know, to ramp up productions can be critical so they can lock in these gains and build on them in an industry that we, uh, we’ve seen struggle at times, especially in the last three or four years. So, Greg, when it comes to what Nvidia is doing right, um, or this or their growth and their success, what’s some of your thoughts that come to mind? Well,

Greg White (00:47:41):

This is mostly stock hype. It’s not really growth yet in any, in the company yet as can happen with stock hype people betting the come line, meaning betting on the future, right. Benefits to come and it’s overhyped. But that doesn’t change the fact that that, um, that Nvidia is doing great things and they’re well positioned. They’re not any particularly any more well positioned, better positioned than, uh, a lot of other T chip makers like T S M C. But, um, but you know, it’s a hot stock right now and this is one of those kind of mythical run-ups. It’ll come back. Um, but that doesn’t really mean anything for the company that’s just, you know, what pe what multiple of their revenues or sales or profits that people are willing to pay right now in speculation. Um, you know, around the company. This happens all the time.

Greg White (00:48:39):

It’s happened to chip companies before. Yep. Um, I think there are a lot of hurdles, uh, around the world for chip manufacturing. The most important being that China is in charge of somewhere depending on where you get your stats, somewhere between 85 and 95% of all of, um, the rare earth, uh, elements and or other production ne necessities of all chips all around the planet. And that it appears that cumulatively there aren’t enough stores or the will to destroy enough earth to collect those rare earth elements from elsewhere around the world. Russia might do it. They’ve got a lot of wasteland that, um, they, they might, if they find, you know, if they find the initiative could, uh, get some of these elements. But we’re get already getting a lot of pushback, mostly from me <laugh>, because the crap whole countries that they are doing this in. One of which happens to be my, uh, heritage homeland of Argentina. So, um, eventually we’re gonna run out of third world holes to, um,

Scott Luton (00:49:55):

To take advantage of

Greg White (00:49:57):

Yeah. To take advantage of, frankly. Yeah, you’re right. That’s great. Thank you for saying that. Uh, imperialistic, oppressor, um,

Scott Luton (00:50:04):

<laugh>, and these are bad. And by the way, these are bad things, of course. Is what, what Greg’s pointing out.

Greg White (00:50:09):

Yeah. They’re, and, and, and we are unwilling to do it in our own country except in some very, very small remote places and we, you know, so it, it’s a substantial constriction to the ability to produce. Yeah. So I don’t know, honestly don’t know because you’d have to really study this. I’m sure there are people out there that do know, and I’d love to hear from ’em that as to how you resolve this, um, without literally pulling the crust off of the Earth’s surface all over the earth. Um, you know, one, one means that I know they are aware of and working on is that there are the ability to synthesize some materials that they found in meteors meteorites that have actually hit the planet, that can produce the same magnetic and other qualities that are necess necessary for these semiconductors. So I would hope that we start going down that path. Yep. Um, because in, in Chile, which by the way is right across the Andes from Argentina also being destroyed, and, and it Chile, I think as a proportion of the nation at a much, much higher level, um, it’s, it’s a travesty to look at some of these hillsides, see them just being pulled apart. Yeah. So, I mean, there’s all kinds of mining being done in both of these countries, but, and others. Yep. Um, anyway,

Scott Luton (00:51:29):

I just wanna call out. There’s, you know, it, it’s a recurring theme, right? Big countries with tons of leverage, taking advantage of smaller countries that are trying to find ways of, of making economic advances and, and leveraging the resources they have. And to Greg’s point, man, some of the mining practices and the before and the after, it’s just devastation. And then when, when I think about Greg, as we’ve talked about time, you know, time, uh, endlessly here is, you know, the battery demand on based on, you know, consumers buying, um, ev and you name it, you name it. How many, you know, these batteries are lithium batteries are going into everything. Uh, we’ve got to find, to your point, a more sustainable way of, of driving and fueling innovation. So we shall see. Um, Hey, I wanna wrap though, Greg on, uh, a fallacy. I have.

Scott Luton (00:52:20):

Uh, ’cause you know, I’m a big space nerd. You, and you just reminded me ’cause you talked about the asteroids and the, and, um, you know, where, ’cause there’s, there’s one out there, maybe several, but there’s one in particular that’s been in the news that’s supposed to have like trillions, multi trillions of resources. I can’t remember the name of it. But of course, being able to even remotely come up with an idea of trying, you know, to mine these asteroids. I don’t know, maybe the next generation can do it. But, um, going back to this picture, this kind, this retro image we used for, with that said, right. Dig

Greg White (00:52:51):

It by the way. I meant to comment on that. That’s a very cool, isn’t

Scott Luton (00:52:53):

It cool? Yeah. Um, so, you know, the rocket ship and that vertical rocket ship that, that we see so much now, I gotta admit Greg as a kid, and I don’t know if the space shuttle really, you know, ’cause that was in my, uh, you know, kid of the eighties and early nineties. That was, that made a big lasting impact, you know, and of course the space shuttle took off vertically, but landed like a plane when I would just see the old shows, the fifties and sixties of rockets that would land would take off and land vertically. I’m like, well, that, that would, that just doesn’t happen like that, you know, modern technologies, it’s gonna look a lot different. And then of course, fast forward to 2023, Greg, and we’ve got <laugh>, we’ve got SpaceX and all the cutting edge private sector, uh, space companies.

Scott Luton (00:53:37):

That’s what their aircraft do. Just like this image, they take off vertically and it lands vertically. And even with, with, um, autonomous ships that will catch ’em as they’re their launching pad. It is, it’s amazing what’s taking place. And Greg, I would just, as we wrap here, I would argue that this is, this is, um, this is gonna be a big taking off point of what’s to come when it comes to, uh, space exploration. And of course the space supply chain, the game is changing. The game is changing, and it’s a matter of time. And I ca I find that to be so exciting, especially when I think of those challenges that we were just speaking up in that for, uh, for story with, um, you know, mis misusing and abusing earth, we gotta go out and find new solutions to old and current problems. Your final word there, Greg?

Greg White (00:54:28):

Yeah, I, I don’t disagree. I think that the answers are out there somewhere and we’re out there, so there’s plenty of opportunity for us to do it. I don’t think that the answer is to go and colonize Mars, by the way. Mm-hmm. If we’re gonna put bubbles over everything anyway because the atmosphere has gone to hell in a hand basket. Right. Why not do it here? Mm-hmm. I mean, if we can do that on a hostile planet, why can’t we put, why can’t we create a contained atmosphere on a planet where we know what the atmosphere needs to look like, right. To support life and growth. So I would argue that now part of the argument, by the way, as I was reminded this morning in watching an old video, um, is that they argue that the earth’s gonna get hit by a, um, meteorite meteor and be vaporized, which is probably gonna happen at some point. But is are we more likely, Scott and you as the space nerd, I’m dying to ask you this question, and I’m gonna give you about two quick minutes to answer it. <laugh>, are we more likely to be hit by an A meteor than than Mars?

Scott Luton (00:55:30):

Undoubtedly. Uh, and why is that? Uh, I, I, I, I think it’s a mix. So I am, I am not quantum math or an astrophysicist or what have you, but I think it’s, it’s when you look at, uh, overall probabilities, it’s based on where we are in the solar system and, and, and a variety of other reasons. But Greg, going back to your first point there, you know, and, and not, not even Mars, but this is why it’s such a big deal with India and, and becoming the fourth country to, to land spacecraft on the moon. We over maybe we o underestimated just how complex it is to get to back to the moon. That’s why it’s been so long. And, um, this Artemis program, right? That, um, that we’re, you know, getting close to launching in mission 11 or 12, it is basically establishing a moon base and a fully functioning, you know, earth lunar supply chain and community up.

Scott Luton (00:56:22):

I mean, it is, it is. So it’s next generation stuff. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and Greg. We’ll see, to your point, uh, it, maybe the answer isn’t going to colonize Mars, but what I’m excited about is what we will learn. Like we started on the front end about everything we’ve benefited from NASA and from space programs around the globe, and how it’s really fueled innovation here. Man, we’re gonna need some big, um, bodacious big hairy, audacious ideas Yep. To figure out these challenges we have. And I think one of the places that we’ll get solutions from is from our space programming.

Greg White (00:56:58):

I think you need to, I think you need to register as a trademark. Get out there,

Scott Luton (00:57:02):

Get out <laugh>.

Greg White (00:57:03):

’cause that, I mean, I think you nailed it. That is, that’s the answer is get out there. Mm. It’s, it’s the same as when, you know, um, people were trying to find the edge of the planet. Think about that. Mm.

Scott Luton (00:57:15):

Right,

Greg White (00:57:16):

Right. And when people were trying to find what was at the polls, which is not a wall, these crazy Q anon, loonies <laugh>, um, <laugh>.

Scott Luton (00:57:28):

Oh, you never know what’s gonna come up. Uh, that reminds me of the church

Greg White (00:57:31):

Show. I mean, as we try to explore these, these unknowns, right? Yes. The next unknown, truly the next unknown is off the planet. I find myself less and less enthralled by all the things on the planet. They are very, very few and far between now because you can see everything out there on a video somewhere, and it somehow seems less pioneering when you do it than when we were kids, Scott. And everything was a mystery, right?

Scott Luton (00:57:59):

Yes. And an adventure. Yes. And that’s what we need more of. Yeah. Agreed. Um, beautiful thoughts there, Greg. I appreciate that. Uh, hey everybody, we have approached and have come to the end of our time here today, but really have enjoyed what a wonderful crowd and smart comments.

Greg White (00:58:15):

And if you stuck around through this weaving, I mean, we did tie it back together, people, right? So for anyone who says they stopped listening at like 16 minutes, tell ’em to try to get to the end because we brought it all back together. We

Scott Luton (00:58:28):

Have That is right. And Steve says it’s not a wall. It’s, that reminded me of the Truman Show. Uh, a lot of good stuff there. All right folks, but you can, you can, Hey, join us every week. Uh, so the supply chain buzz again, 12 New Eastern time. Every Monday we tackle some of the leading developments across global news. And the best part beyond what Greg shares here, which I get always get a kick out of. Of course, we’ve got guest co-hosts and yeah. And, you know, uh, guest practitioners, you know, last week, Greg, we had, uh, the fearless supply chain leader at first watch. Who? Man, she was a dynamo. Um, uh, Layla. Layla with First Watch, she was a dynamo. Yeah.

Greg White (00:59:06):

And by the way, if you haven’t eaten at first watch,

Scott Luton (00:59:08):

That’s good stuff. Yeah.

Greg White (00:59:09):

It,

Scott Luton (00:59:10):

It’s good stuff. It’s the comments from the smartest, the smartest audience around in the uni, in the known universe, right? So y’all make it worth our while and, uh, we appreciate all the feedback we get. Okay, Greg, uh, always a pleasure. Big thanks again, Catherine and Amanda behind the scenes. Greg, you’re on fire here today. Careful. ’cause your hair might be on fire. You brought it as always. <laugh>. Hey, uh, but al uh, <laugh>, you got threw me off of that, Greg. Hey folks, whatever you do, whatever you do, this is a very real challenge here. As we were talking on at the end, man, we got problems, abounds, uh, problems. They’re, they’re everywhere, new and old. And we gotta find new ways of, of putting them to bed right and making sure they don’t come back. So to that end, it’s all about taking action. Hopefully you found something here today that you can put into action. ’cause it’s all about deeds, not words. And to that end, on behalf of our entire team here at Supply Chain now, Scott Luton challenging you to do good, to give forward and to be the change that is needed. And we’ll see you next time, right back here at Supply Chain now. Thanks everybody.

Scott Luton (01:00:15):

Thanks

Intro/Outro (01:00:16):

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