The Buzz is Supply Chain Now’s regular Monday livestream, held at 12 noon 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!

In this week’s episode of The Buzz, host Scott Luton introduces new Supply Chain co-host Kim Reuter to the show. Together they discuss:

• A delay in the $5B Rivian Plan in Georgia
• How consumer prices continue to rise
• The Taylor Swift economic impact
• Assessing supply chain risk at Zara
• Software that enables seafood tracing from catch to sale

Intro/Outro (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 (00:32):

Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. Scott Luton and Kim Morder here with you on Supply Chain. Now welcome to today’s live stream. Hey Kim, how you doing today?

Kim Reuter  (00:42):

I’m doing alright. How are you?

Scott Luton (00:44):

Wonderful, wonderful. Great to have you here. It’s been a couple of years. Our audience has been demanding you coming back and today you’re back with us here. It’s so great to see you. What’s the weather like up in Virginia? We had

Kim Reuter  (00:57):

A beautiful weekend, nice and sunny and warm and carrying on, but cold front moving in. So we’ve got a little wind today. As always,

Scott Luton (01:04):

We need a weather map.

Kim Reuter  (01:05):

Exactly.

Scott Luton (01:07):

No cold front moving in, you said coming from the north 10 day outlook. Here we go. No, but folks, if you can’t tell exactly, we’re going to have a lot of fun today on the Buzz where we discuss a variety of news and developments every week here on Mondays at 12 noon, really from across global business. We want to hear from you. So give us your take in the comments throughout the show. And in fact, folks, y’all know we usually publish the replay of the buzz on Fridays. If you’re listening to that podcast replay, hey, come on and join us live. You can find us wherever you’re consuming your social media, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, you name it, Facebook, even Monday’s at 12 noon Eastern time. We’d love to hear from you. And if you’re like Gino, pleasure here. Gino’s, great to see you last week. You’re one of a kind. Hey folks, if you like the show, share it with a friend. They’ll be glad you did. Okay, Kim, we got a lot of good stuff to get into here today, right? We’ve got five stories, we got some resources. Are we talking seafood, supply chain, some transparency there. We got a great hour teed up. We

Kim Reuter  (02:11):

Do. I’m excited about it.

Scott Luton (02:12):

We are as well. Alright, so folks, before we get into things, we’ll offer up some resources starting with that said, which we dropped over the weekend. Y’all might’ve gotten a copy of this via LinkedIn or your email. And if you’re part of our email distribution network, you’ll get a version of this on Tuesday morning. But Kim, we had a lot of fun with this newsletter. We talked about the exploding she economy. We talked about several trending logistics hubs to keep your eyes on, including Savannah folks, for those that don’t know, we talked about rare earths, which really aren’t all that rare and some live upcoming. So check out with that said over the weekend, Hey Kim, this SHE Economy in a nutshell, there’s a lot more female startups and entrepreneurial initiatives according to the data this year is pretty cool to see. Isn’t it

Kim Reuter  (03:00):

Super encouraging? When I started in the logistics business way back in the day, most of the females were the brokers worked in the office, the men worked the docs. It was pretty broken or pretty defined and separated duties. And then when I moved into tech, not a lot of women in tech when I started in tech in the early 2000, only female director at and it was on ops for years. And so when you’re immersed in that, you don’t really feel it, right? You’re kind of like you’re just part of the gang. There’s so few of you, but it is really encouraging to see more and more women engage. We bring so much to the table that is different and different ideas that our male counterparts just don’t think about, aren’t wired that way. And the one thing I do want to bring to the table because I do feel like we start to get this like, well, we’re a little better. We all bring something great to the table. We all have wonderful perspectives. I don’t think females are more successful than males. I don’t think males are more successful than females. I think we all have. Great. So I’m super excited to see it happen. I’m super excited to see it hit mainstream and I’m excited to talk about what some of our topics today because there’s so much happening behind the scenes, so awesome about it.

Scott Luton (04:06):

I’m with you man. I love your passion. It’s contagious. Let tell you, I appreciate some of your disclaimers there as well as the husband of an entrepreneur and as a father of two daughters that have incredible entrepreneurial, I think skill sets already. I think it is exciting. So folks, check it out. Don’t check our word for it. Check out the data in one of the articles that we hit on with that set. Also, speaking of if you’all are at modex, look at these two. So I saw Gino there and many others, folks, 40,000 people is what the projections were. Now a lot of times these trade shows, Kim, I’m not sure if you’ve experienced this, they give you a number because it needs to be big. But on day two of mod, when I was there, clay and I hit probably two dozen booths out of the million that are there. And to a person, every single person talked about how the foot traffic at MODEX this year was ginormous. So hey, I love hearing that in-person trade shows are back. And Kim, I think you just was at an in-person show too, right?

Kim Reuter  (05:05):

Yeah. I was in Nashville last week thinking at a staff to conference with their association for industrial distributors. And one, it was great to be back in person and more and more of that. I love speaking in person and I spoke on executive leadership and supply chain. There is not enough of it. And I’m talking to you CEOs, CTOs, CMOs, that’s who I’m talking. CPOs, that’s who I’m talking to. And then also the customer experience and supply chain. Another topic people don’t talk about. Very rarely considered in csat. Nobody talks about supply chain until something goes wrong and then it’s all they talk about. That’s right. So two of my top favorite topics,

Scott Luton (05:43):

I’m with you. And I think one other thing that would be helpful for folks, helpful context for folks is some of your background folks, you can connect with Kim out on LinkedIn, but she was talking a little bit about her journey. She did big things at Amazon and Nordstrom and other stops in her career. So again, as we always promise, we’re practitioners first that happen to love talking about global supply chain. Y’all make sure you connect with Kim out there. One more quick announcement and then we’ve got to jump into five stories with Kim. Folks, if anyone out there is going to be at Gartner Supply Chain Symposium, and I bet plenty of y’all will reach out to me. I’m going to be down there doing some interviews on the floor so to speak. We’re going to publish a variety of those perspectives and roll that out in the weeks that follows.

(06:23):

So if you can be down in Orlando in May, give me a shout and I’d love to connect. All right, so Kim, our first story as we move into the first of five, I’m going to pop this up there and we’re talking Rivian a very intriguing story. So getting update here on an emerging player in the EV industry, the upstart rivian a week or so ago as reported by many outlets including manufacturing dive here, well electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian announced that it was pausing the construction of a $5 billion plant here in Georgia. Now Rivian says it plans to save a big chunk of capital in what it calls a temporary halt, and it’s going to start making its R two vehicle at an existing company site in normal Illinois production is slated there to start in the first half of 2026. Now for Georgia, we’re talking about a massive deal. In fact, it was the second biggest economic development deal in state history. That’s how big of a thing this is. And based on local reporting here, Georgia has already spent $299 million in developing the site and infrastructure. And Rivian can legally pause the project up until about 2030. Now, Kim, your thoughts on what rivian ISS up to?

Kim Reuter  (07:35):

Well first of all, sorry Georgia. I know that was a huge hit for you guys. I think across the EV market, we’re seeing the slowdown in general. Other auto manufacturers are pulling out or slowing down their development. We’ve seen quite a few of even Shell and BP have halted their alternate energy investments reduced their staff associated around that. So I think in general the EV market is taking a hit. So I’m not surprised to see Rivian do what they’re doing. And I do need to make a small disclaimer. I live in truck country where farmers, seafood watermen, there are more white trucks in the county I live in and probably some states. So we know trucks and I think also a truck is a hard sell on the EV model. They tried to do commercial trucks with EV was not a great success. There’s a lot of factors in hauling as anybody knows in supply chain. It’s pretty complicated stuff. So I’m sad to see it happen, but I am not surprised. I would not be surprised if we see another drastic cost cutting measures on their part in the next six to 12 months.

Scott Luton (08:36):

Yeah, I tend to agree with you and in a different vein, and I can’t remember if I was discussing this here on the buzz last week, but I was reading an article in a publication focused on the energy infrastructure and just to keep up with the exploding demand, especially driven by data centers, the infrastructure to keep up with all the, we’re putting, in fact, they were looking at three states, I want to say Georgia and two others, and the amount of plants that need to come online to meet current demand. It was mind blowing. And in

Kim Reuter  (09:05):

Ev, the other thing we don’t talk about is what do we do with the batteries? And I think when we bring this back to supply chain piece, there’s a whole nother supply chain element, which is the reverse supply chain, which is now we have all of these batteries. Interesting enough, I worked with a small startup in a West Virginia startup that was doing, working around with some refurbishing batteries. Interesting enough, a battery cannot be used in a vehicle but still have 60, 70% of its usable light, but it’s not reliable enough to actually go on a vehicle. So there’s a huge supply chain component on the other end of this that I think is way more interesting than just the manufacturing piece.

Scott Luton (09:43):

I agree with you Ken. We could talk about this story and this industry for hours. I’m out here, our studio is in town in West Atlanta, but we make home out halfway out towards Athens, which isn’t far from where the plant was being built. And over the last year or so we’ve been kind of skeptical whether it was going to really come to fruition. But over the last year or so, we’ve seen hospitals start breaking ground, all the new developments breaking ground because they’re going to employ I think 5,000 jobs, 5,000 families is what was on the line. So we’ll see how this thing shakes out, but man, are there so many different factors, but let us know what y’alls take is. We’re dropping a link to the article there in the chat. Check it out. And let’s see here. Larry says, these vehicles are just too expensive for most folks. Larry says, on average also true pickups run around a hundred thousand dollars. Man,

Kim Reuter  (10:31):

Okay, I didn’t know how much they cost, but we won’t be driving those in my town.

Scott Luton (10:38):

Seriously. Goodness gracious. I think I was talking about my preference for Honda Accords last week. Kim and the Honda Accords don’t, they don’t run a hundred grand. Let’s see here. Will said, I think once energy storage improves, we’ll see added interest. Good point there Will, and I think Will also made it, just made it back from modex in Atlanta. So will, hey, let us know your favorite takeaway from modex. Okay, Kim, we’re going to keep moving. We got four more stories to get into. We’re having too much fun. It might be illegal, so we’ll see. We got to stay on the good side of the loss.

Kim Reuter  (11:10):

Fucking up the time.

Scott Luton (11:11):

Yes. Alright, so let’s pop this up here. So moving from one of my favorite things to talk about, which is manufacturing to one of my least favorite things to talk about, which is inflation. So as reported by our friends over at CNBC inflation, well it’s still a thing. According to the US Department of Labor, the consumer price index was up 0.4% in February, which is what many analysts were expecting and was up 3.2% year over year, slightly higher than what most folks were expecting. And the core CPI taking out volatile food and energy, well that came in at 3.8% year over year. Now 2% is what the Fed wants. And Robert Frick, an economist in the banking industry, was quoted in this read as saying reports like Januarys and Februarys aren’t going to prompt the Fed to lower rates quickly. Of course he’s referring to the interest rates that the markets and business leaders everywhere are watching closely. Kim, your thoughts?

Kim Reuter  (12:06):

I think our biggest thing here is we still have the 3 0 1 tariffs in place. And ever since those have been put in place, we’ve had consistent inflation. Our transportation costs have been coming down consistently. We’re down from that craziness during covid with $40,000, 40 foot containers. So our logistics and transportation costs are going down, but we’re not seeing it reflected in what’s going on in the economy. And there’s two things. One, we still have those, like it or not, 80% of our product comes from China. And that hasn’t slowed down. The tariffs did not put a halt on there. We thought it was going and all of that gets passed to the consumer. Walmart is not taking other savings account to pay that. So we’re not, okay. Are any, I’m not picking Amazon, all of them target equal offender. I don’t want to pick on anybody specifically, but that’s our number one thing. We haven’t done anything with that. And in addition, we put tariffs on things that halted our own manufacturing and hurt us and we hurt our export relationships, especially for farmers around, we export a ton of grains and meat products that come out of the United States. We hurt relationships with that. That hurt our farmers in the United States. So I think that’s the one big piece. The second piece nobody talks about is credit card debt. Our credit card debt is at an all time high. So yeah, people are spending, but it’s just funny money,

Scott Luton (13:27):

Interesting observations. Going back to your first point. I saw a tweet, Kathy Morrow Roberson does great work over there and I love catching her updates on X and I saw hers earlier today. I think the China to Mexico lane is the busiest in the world right now. To your point about China and also the Mexican market is incredible. The growth there is just blowing up left and right. Going back to ev, it’ll be interesting because Chinese EV companies are trying to get a bigger foothold in the market down there in Mexico. So we’ll see how that plays out. But excellent point, Kim and I should give a disclaimer here. Anytime we talk about inflation and economics, Kim unabashedly, not to be confused with an economist unabashedly, I like reporting key metrics, but man, I don’t know about you, but accounting and macro and microeconomics, that was not my strong suit in school. What you think, Kim?

Kim Reuter  (14:19):

No, I agree. Yeah, I’m not getting any market advice.

Scott Luton (14:23):

Yeah, don’t ask our opinion on global macroeconomics shifts here and there. Let’s go to a quick blurb, moving from economics and inflation to Hey, national supply chain Day folks, mark your calendars. April 29th is National supply chain day. We’re bringing it back with a fury. It was established several years ago by the one and only Mary Kate Love is part of our team now. Grateful for that. And we’re going to be reinvigorating this day and we’re starting this year with this special event on the 29th. And in particular this year, we are going to celebrate the people that make global supply chains happen. They keep us all moving forward. So stay tuned. We hope that you’ll join us for this special event. And whatever you do on that day, wherever you are here in the states or elsewhere, hey, be sure to celebrate the folks that make supply chains happen everywhere. And also big thanks to our friends over at Vector Global Logistics for sponsoring this year’s programming. Okay, Kim, if you had to pick before we get to our third article, because we’re ahead of schedule, I love that. If you had to pick one person or role in global supply chain that you believe that’s on the top of the list of folks that don’t get enough recognition, what’s the first role that comes to your mind?

Kim Reuter  (15:41):

Truckers,

Scott Luton (15:42):

Yes. Okay, to your truckers. I’ll add our maintenance professionals because folks, they keep fleets going, whether it is aircraft, whether ocean vessels, of course our trucks. And talk about folks that never get any of the spotlights. So if you turn wrenches out there or these days, do all kinds of high-end technology stuff to keep the infrastructure going. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And all of you out there making supply chain happen. We are very, very grateful. Thank you. And also we are dropping the link there in the chat for national supply chain that y’all click on that and let us know what you think. Alright, this is going to be a fun one. This is going to be a fun one. So somehow, Kim, we are connecting the most popular rock and roll star in the observable universe, at least two global supply chain. We’ve got a great read here from our friends at Forbes and before I prompt you to tell us more, how about this picture of Amanda and Brantley and Gracie at Taylor Swift in Atlanta? Love it sometime last year. So they had it. Tell you what Kemp, they are still enjoying their time there. But tell us more when we’re talking supply chain and Taylor Swift, your thoughts.

Kim Reuter  (16:49):

So before I jump into the supply chain piece, which is super interesting, I peeked behind the curtain there, but I have a quote from the Times just to set us up a little bit. And it says, if Taylor Swift worked an economy, she would be bigger than 50 countries, so bigger than 50 countries. She is. And her shows are the equivalent to two to three Super Bowls a weekend, the production. So just the scale of what we’re talking about, she’s two stages. So getting into the supply chain piece, if you did not know this, just two stages. One is always being broken down and one is always being, that’s how she gets world to world. But I found this article on Forbes and it was really interesting to me because I’m always trying to take big to small. How do big companies, big things impact small companies or how can they learn from them?

(17:36):

That’s a lot of the work I do with the Virginia seafood industry today. So this great article was about not only Taylor Swift supply chain and just the thousands of containers that have to follow her around to make on this very coordinated effort and logistics to make this happen, which in itself is very impressive. But how these small businesses, this articles based around Australia are profiting from this by leveraging their supply chain. So interesting enough, there is a 219% increase in cowboy boots in Australia due from starting in December of 2023. Now I have no idea why that happened. Now of course we know Taylor is on her way and the Swifties are getting ready. And so just the amount of supply and demand that had to happen in order to meet that surge. And what this article was really about was surge in demand, a short term period, surge in demand, so Christmas in two weeks kind of thing versus two months.

(18:27):

And the companies are leveraging their manufacturers and using better logistics. And then of course then we also had a very small business who got quickly on top of things, a small boutique store, 40% increase in her sales. She sped up manufacturing, she leaned in particular style she knew was she leveraged air freight instead of ocean freight and really put herself on the map with it. So I’m always intrigued to see how these big movements, big companies, big celebrities, what’s happening behind the scenes and how does this trickle down into the smaller economies. So really great story about Taylor discontinuing to spread. Goodness.

Scott Luton (19:03):

Yeah, love that Kim. Folks check on this link. A great article comes to us from Forbes. I think it’s fascinating. Just last week or maybe week before Kim, we were talking about the Hollywood supply chain, right? Because here in Georgia, filmmaking is a big business, right? And we were at King Plow a week or two ago, me and Tyler and Clay and others, and Cobra, Kai, the Netflix series was being filmed and goodness gracious, Kim, to your point, you should have seen the trucks, the massive army of help and installers and you name it, they had traffic cones everywhere. They were directed traffic and all this stuff. Folks, don’t stop to think about that. Oftentimes not only the economic impact that you’re talking about, but also the sheer supply chain that comes with any kind of productions these days, Kim. So that was a great call out.

Kim Reuter  (19:50):

The carrots in your grocery store supply chain is everything. Yes it is. Yeah. Well, don’t get me started. Never. It’ll be here. We’ll be still be talking next one.

Scott Luton (20:01):

But you know what? I hate to go back to something, but this really illustrates why we have to have a day set aside to celebrate national supply chain day. Because every single thing out there has a supply chain behind it. Good, great people, technologies, you name it. Making things happen and giving us as consumers, we take the practitioner hat off for a second, giving us consumers the opportunity to get stuff same day, next day return stuff. Unfortunately we’ll have to talk about returns later. I’m a big proponent of let’s limit these returns, but I hate returning anything, but I’ll save that for another time. A couple of quick comments. Larry Klein says, dock workers don’t get enough recognition, the high fives. I’m with you Larry, it’s a great call out there. Will says, hey, with surges like Kim was talking about, you got to be on the lookout for the bullwhip effect. Excellent point there. Hey Umit, great to have you here via LinkedIn. You’re welcome for the live event, great to have you here. Let us know your take on some of these stories. Josh goody from Seattle. Josh, hope this finds you well via LinkedIn. Josh says, Hey, if you want to see something insane, look at what F1 racing teams do during the season for the cars, tools and support transport. Now Kim, you were just giving a thumbs up. Are you a big F1 fan?

Kim Reuter  (21:16):

Huge F1 fan. Huge. Max is going to take it all the way. Yeah, I love F1 and another huge production, right? Massive production to get those cars everywhere. It’s with everything. I can’t even get started on it, but yeah, I love F1. Yeah, awesome. We just actually subscribed to the F1 channel.

Scott Luton (21:35):

Okay, very cool. Well hey, we’re going to have to get some F1 updates from you in the weeks and months ahead. I’m still trying to get into the racing I saw where they have a road race in Vegas now. I think that’s really, really cool. Fascinating. We’ll have to get some F1 consulting from you, Kim, if you’re open to that.

Kim Reuter  (21:51):

Yes, love it.

Scott Luton (21:53):

Okay. Alright, moving right along. I want to get into our next story here. Today we’re going to be talking about how investors are pushing for more supply chain transparency at a popular clothing retailer. Now, Kim, tell us more,

Kim Reuter  (22:09):

Right? So there’s been a movement in the industry to be more apparent about our supply chains. People want to know where their stuff is coming from, which is wonderful. Lots of conversations about blockchain and tracking and all of these kind of things. And it’s interesting to see these fast fashion as we like to call them manufacturers kind of stepping into this transparency space. And so first and foremost list of manufacturers, it’s clever. It’s probably a bit of a political and media move unless you’re giving me the manufacturers who actually pick the cotton and source the cotton. I’m not getting a full picture of your supply chain. So giving me a list of your manufacturers by location is lovely, but it doesn’t tell the true story. So I have some respect for Zara for holding back on this. You are giving away a lot of information when we do that. And my bigger question is this is what’s the value of it? So we’ve given you this information, do people know how to decipher it and figure out what it actually means, right? We’ve had child labor laws in the United States for years, imports, customs, jump teams, inspections, Nike aas all went through this a couple decades ago. So it’s not a new thing. But I think what was interesting about this article was Zara’s resistance to jump into the pool, which I think is a bit clever for them,

Scott Luton (23:24):

Right? Excellent points. Kim, I want to go back to one of the first things you said because starting and stopping with just one tier, to your point, you don’t get the whole story and putting whether they should or shouldn’t. Putting that aside, I think when it comes to risk management for supply chain, for business leaders, supply chain practitioners, you name it out there, getting visibility into all the tiers, your suppliers, suppliers, I think that is one of the only ways we can get into really understanding, getting beyond all the murkiness and really understanding the risk amongst any of those things that you mentioned out there that investors or consumers or your customers are looking for. So Kim, excellent points. I got to tell you, I have never shopped at Zara. I can’t speak from a customer experience standpoint. Kim, any thoughts on that end? What the experience is like at Zara and how this may or may not change that?

Kim Reuter  (24:17):

Well, I worked at Nordstrom as you probably know for a few years. I know I’ve not Zara, but Zara and HMN, they’re what’s considered what we call fast fashion, which basically means it’s cheap and there are benefits for that. Not everybody can do $150 T-shirt, totally understand. But the challenge is that there’s the other supply chain, right? There’s the other end of this. If a T-shirt’s only good for two wears and it costs you $10, there’s a cost to the environment. There’s a cost on the other end of this piece of it. So when people want to look at the fast fashion. So that’s how I feel about fast fashion kind of in general. But then also, here’s the other thing, if you want cheap clothing, cheap clothings require cheap supply chains. And cheap supply chains are very rarely beautiful. That is just a flat fact. If you’re looking for state-of-the-art, clean, beautiful facilities all over the world, you’re probably going to be disappointed if you’re shopping fast fashion.

Scott Luton (25:16):

So Kim, that’s an excellent point because folks, we talk about this forever, my dear friend Greg White who has joined me for countless shows, one of my favorite things he would say is the customer is the beginning and the end of global supply chains. And with that comes a powerful voice and a vote. And so to Kim’s point, which I think more folks should know about, if you like cheap stuff, you got to know what you’re voting with, with your dollars, right? Because not pretty at times. And we’ve got some serious issues of our time that we’re all wrestling with and there’s some powerful ways that you can help us address that with how you shop. So Kim, great stuff here. Great stuff. I appreciate your commentary especially, we’re going to have to do a deep dive in your journey because I bet you could write a book or seven based on your experience in retail and e-commerce and stuff, huh? Yeah,

Kim Reuter  (26:08):

Yeah, I have a lot of experience all the way from the bottom up. That’s what I think is, it is interesting. I started working in Norfolk as an import broker. Actually I started before that as a telex operator for a ship husbandry company way back when pigeons and all that. No, I’m just kidding. Before cell phones. And we sent telexes to ships and that was my first job and I was a terrible typist. I’m still a terrible typist to this day. I’m not accurate. And so they only kept me in that department for about six months and they were like, get her somewhere else.

Scott Luton (26:37):

I’ve seen your emails,

Kim Reuter  (26:42):

Get her somewhere else

Scott Luton (26:43):

And we’re going to do that. We’re going to take a deep dive in your journey. But I was just thinking over the weekend about some of our teachers and Ms. Sims is who taught me keyboarding, I want to say as a ninth grader at South Aiken High School. And I remember, I still remember the words per minute, all the various games that it tried to get you to push that words per minute typing. And I’m an okay typer. I’m not a great speller and my subject and verb don’t always agree. So Kim, that’s where I struggle. Alright folks, we promised a holistic, wide ranging episode and that’s what we’re delivering here on the Buzz Kim, this final story, I’m going to pop up this graphic here. I think this is something we have been talking about, God, it feels like since the first couple episodes here at supply chain now.

(27:27):

So seafood supply chain. So in particular we’re going to be talking about this topic that we’ve been watching for years, traceability in our food supply chains. So as reported here by National fishermen, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a rule in 2023 that required companies involved in the seafood supply chain ecosystem to maintain records and tracking essentially from boat to table. Now there are some exceptions, but some of the seafood that falls under this rule, lobster crab, squid, shrimp, and others, seafood processors and dealers must comply by January, 2026. So the clock is ticking just around the corner. Now, as you might expect, a lot of that tracking currently is done very manually with a good old clipboard pen and clipboard. But technology firms new and old are rolling out solutions for the seafood industry. And one aspect that seemingly many companies are trying to crack the coat on is making RFID chips cheap enough and reusable enough so they can be placed on individual items such as lobsters. So Kim, you’ve got a ton of experience in the seafood industry. You mentioned a couple companies earlier, your take on this ongoing challenge and story and regulation.

Kim Reuter  (28:39):

So just the ongoing regulation in the seafood industry is frustrating. I’ll just leave it there. They are already highly regulated in the United States. I mean, so lemme just give you a little bit of idea about the regulations that go on in the seafood industry. They can only fish from sun up to sundown. They can only fish for certain hours depending on what they’re harvesting. It changes by season, it changes by species. And so the state and health regulations in the seafood industry is already complex. I mean every fish has to be tagged. I work a lot in the oyster industry in Virginia and they count every oyster Delicious. Yeah, delicious, great side benefits, but they count every oyster. When I got, I was like, no, come on y’all. You just count a bucket and then you average it and then you every oyster, thousands of oysters a day.

(29:34):

Wow. And so it’s already a labor intensive work. The harvesting is labor intensive and then the regulations are labor intensive. So what I would love to tap in is that the work is already being done. The question is how do we automate that? It’s already being tracked and I think that’s what software companies are working on. There’s huge hurdle here. We don’t always have tech savvy users. The industry is traditionally generational and surprisingly, and I love it, a lot of the watermen I work with on a daily basis are in their seventies and eighties, still getting up at four o’clock in the morning, still working eight hour days on a boat. The most fit robust people you’ve ever seen in your life, but they’re not necessarily tech savvy. So it’s an interesting to see how this is going to develop. I don’t want it to see it be prohibitive.

(30:18):

And that’s what happens is it becomes, sometimes these things become so prohibitive that they just give up. They’re like, why? With all the other stuff I have to deal with the special line. They have to be the gear, the eco, the fuel costs, their prices for their products getting driven down. Some of ’em just bow out, they just don’t want to do it anymore. So I hate to see it add work, but we do need traceability. Another interesting point on this, and then I’ll hand it back over to you, is that most of the seafood people eat in the United States today is actually imported. I’m hoping that these regulations start to highlight that these things that everybody’s eating that are like, oh, previously frozen filet, we leave off the other end of that from chili and people unknowingly buy most of their seafood imported.

Scott Luton (31:09):

Yeah, very interesting story folks. Y’all check it out. And national fishermen, I got to admit, this is a new publication for me, but I like how they put this story together, something we’ve been talking about for years. So y’all check it out and give us your take. One of the concerns, and this probably is a rule of thumb for just about any kind of big regulation for different industries, but a lot of the bigger companies, Kim, and I think you may have alluded to this too, the article definitely did. The bigger companies are going to be okay. They’ve got the money and the capital oftentimes to invest in the technology and they’ll train their teams and stuff. But the smaller companies that are so valuable and that make up so many different parts of the seafood ecosystem, those are folks that a lot of people are worried about what this regulation and the various solutions put in peril. Kim, your quick thoughts of how the smaller companies are going to be able to tackle this thing, and

Kim Reuter  (31:56):

That’s when I talk about throwing their hands up and getting out. Omega is going to be fine. We’re already digitized, right? They’re already got all of it had to do that to scale where it starts to impact the smaller guys, most of them, it’s not money. Now they’ll tell you they broke all the time, but they’re running multimillion dollar operations with their so in the sun in a boat. And so it’s more around time. They don’t have time to do these things. A lot of times they’re obviously working outside on the, they’re actively harvesting on the water. They’re not sitting in a computer. They’re in a harsh environment all day long. And that’s where I get upset about it. I’m just like, you’re going to squeeze the little man one more time. I work with a company called Ketchu Supply in Bedford, Massachusetts. They do gear, they started in lobster gear, they do oyster gear now their lobster. It’s almost not even a quarter of their business anymore because so many are getting out of it. It’s just why bother? Yeah,

Scott Luton (32:49):

I hate to hear that. We’re going to keep our finger on the pulse and I’ll tell you, the industry is blowing up. There’s all these technology providers seeing the opportunity and it’s like they’re standing up a new company left and right. We talked on the front end, Kim, about the SHE economy, but maybe we need to be talking about the C economy on the next show. We’ll see. We will see folks, yes. All right, Kim, I can’t wait to get up there. We talked about this a few weeks ago. I want to get up there and put my hands and my eyes on part of the seafood supply chain stories that you see almost day in and day out. We’re going to do that, right? We’re going to bring a videographer up there so we can get some good footage and bring to our global audience what days are like working in seafood supply chain. That’d be a lot of fun. Josh Goody says, Hey, the Deadliest Catch talked about the legislation when it came to crabs. Think it was season two or three where they talked about shares of quotas, season dates on crab species and the crab being transferred from boat to processing some of that reject criteria. Josh, it is fascinating. Think again, this comes back to consumer awareness. A lot of us go to the beach once a year and we have delicious food, but do we ever stop and think about what enables that to take place? And

Kim Reuter  (34:02):

So in the oyster industry, to me it’s even more fascinating because it’s actually a live product.

(34:08):

You have to keep it alive to eat it. And what supply chain are you shipping? A live product, a perishable live product. I mean a cow, right? But we can take the cow out and feed him and get him, but it’s a perishable live product. Yes. So I mean, I guess you put the wish back in the water somewhere, but I mean it’s a super interesting supply chain and there’s some great technology out there that is coming that, and there’s also some really simple technology that’s coming out, which I love the most. I’m all about simple. Oh, I’m with you. And so yeah, there’s definitely some things we can talk about.

Scott Luton (34:38):

I’m with you. Alright, well this has been a ton of fun, Kim. I tell you your first appearance on the Buzz, so stay tuned as Kim joins us on a variety of shows in the months ahead. I had a blast. We’re going to have that origin story for Kim Reuter at some point really, really soon. But Kim, before we wrap, and you’ve made me thank you for making me extremely starving now and hungry for seafood, some oysters, maybe for seafood. Kim, before we wrap, let’s make sure folks know how to connect with you. So what’s the easiest way, if folks want to compare notes with you, talk shop, maybe they want to learn more about your background or I know you do a lot of consulting and keynoting and stuff like that. How can folks connect with you? Kim,

Kim Reuter  (35:17):

Easiest way is to go to the website, which is clarity scale growth.com. That’s what CSG stands for. That is often my formula for success. You have to be clear about your goals. You have to build for scale and then you’ll have growth. You cannot have one without the other. Clarity scale, growth.com. All my information is there. You can get in touch with me through the website, would love to talk to anybody who’s

Scott Luton (35:36):

Interested. Awesome. It’s just that easy folks. We are dropping that link in the chat there. Your one click away from Connecting. Kim, a pleasure to have you here on the Buzz. Really enjoyed your perspective from your journey and we’re going to talk a lot more in the months ahead. So thanks for joining me here today. Alright folks, thanks for being here. I know we couldn’t hit everybody’s comments and questions here today and get your take out there on these five stories, but a couple friendly reminders. Don’t forget about National Supply Chain Day on April 29th, right? Even if you don’t celebrate with us, celebrate in your ecosystem and be sure to share extra gratitude that day. Also, if you’re going to be at Gartner Supply Chain Symposium in May in Orlando, give me a shout out. I’d love to bake you into our production plan there.

(36:19):

Thanks for being here. Big shout out to Catherine and Amanda behind the scenes, helping to make everything happen. Big thanks to Kim Reuter for joining us here today. And folks, as always, on behalf of the entire team here, I’m challenge you. Hey, take action. Take something that Kim or I shared here today, something you read, put it into action. Your team will appreciate it. Right? Deeds, not words, no one’s got time for lip service, right? So on that note, on behalf of the entire team here, Scott Luton challenging you to do good, to give forward and to be the change. And we’ll see you next time, right back here at Supply Chain now. Thanks everybody.

Intro/Outro (36:52):

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