Expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam, more commonly known to consumers by its brand name, “Styrofoam,” has long been the seafood industry’s go-to transport packaging of choice. Its insulating properties and light weight made it the seemingly ideal transport packaging for seafood. But a powerful tide has begun to turn against EPS. Polystyrene foam is undeniably problematic.…

“Stay-at-home” is the phrase of the year and that means more deliveries and curb side pickup orders than your grocery store system was ever built to handle. USA Today reports that as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, “Instacart, Amazon and Walmart grocery delivery sales in the U.S. all jumped by at least two-thirds from the year before”. And, in case you thought…

The grocery e-commerce industry has been on a steady path of growth for some time now, and with the added impact of COVID-19, growth is set to compound significantly. In 2018, online grocery shopping sales in the US reached 23.9 billion and then grew to 28.68 billion in 2019, a 16.6% increase.  Since the start of the new year, stay-at-home orders alongside the closures of restaurants throughout the nation have increased aggregate sales projections immensely; with some experts projecting…

Shipping poultry is hard. The product itself is mostly water, there is often purge or leakers in a box, and if the cold chain is not maintained there is additional moisture created from the freeze blast. All this liquid damages corrugated packaging or even the product itself before it winds up on the grocer’s shelf.…

The Scramble to Handle Eggs Whether they’re scrambled, poached, boiled, fried, sunny side up, or simply used in baking – Americans love eggs. According to a recent study, the annual per capita of consumption of eggs in the United States is 274.2 per person. That’s a lot of eggs to handle. And a lot of opportunities for damage…

Typically, trends in consumer preferences will rise and fall, but occasionally trends persist and become a consistent aspect of consumer purchasing behavior. Consumers’ desire for quality and freshness has persisted into an undeniable requirement for grocery retailers, according to the Power of Meat report and Total Consumer Reports from Nielsen. So, how can you deliver outstanding product quality that…

Because packaging is such an integral part of the perishables supply chain, Tosca holds its food safety standards to the highest degree, proactively adopting ISO/TS 22002-4 and ISO 22000 standards to ensure food travels safely throughout the supply chain. These standards involve 564 pages of process documents that outline the requirements for ensuring food safety. …

It’s too late to call the exterminators. By the time December 2018 arrives, the Earth will be crawling with over 11 billion “things” connected to the Internet, and there is no turning back. So is the time finally at hand for some of those IoT devices to be your pallets? The Internet of Things (IoT)…

As retailers continue to optimize their supply chains in the relentless and necessary pursuit of profit and efficiency, more and more of them are architecting increasingly captive, vertically integrated supply chains. Consumers demand more transparency, quality and consistency. And retailers need unprecedented control and predictability over demand, cost, velocity, distribution and waste. For many retailers, the…

Light pallet effortlessly performs the heavy lifting in a recent supply chain trial From omnichannel to automation, and from real-time visibility to heightened concerns about hygiene and worker safety, emerging trends continue to strain the capabilities of today’s retail supply chains. Operators are increasingly motivated to identify and root out long accepted legacy practices that…

Ensuring food safety in the supply chain In today’s complex perishable supply chain, Food Safety means and covers more than just the food in the final package; it covers the ingredients, the final product, the packaging of the product, and even how the product is transported.  As the food supply chain becomes more complex, the…