Fall is a season of change. Across the country you our readers are working hard to dig up your potato crops. It’s a busy season where situations and circumstances change by the day. The same can be said for our work here at Spud Smart.
In this issue, we really worked hard to bring you a magazine chalked full of helpful fall information from field work to potato shipping. Potato shipping is where we really dove deep writing our feature story “The Wild West of of Canadian Potato Shipping.”
As the story title says, potato shipping really is the Wild West. Policies and processes vary across the country and change depending on which sector of the industry you work in. For the team here at Spud Smart we were curious to learn more about this part of the industry that is so integral yet mostly talked about only in passing.
Researching the article, I learned the shipping industry is ever evolving and changing to fit with the times. Right now, it’s struggling with inflationary pressures driving costs higher, while the ongoing North America trucker shortage is causing stress and changes in processor habits are making for process shifts. However, the industry is working to adapt to ship those spuds.
You may notice there are two bylines on this story, that of myself and my colleague Alex Martin. As I said at the top of this editorial, fall is a season of change and adaptation, which is what happened with this story. I had completed the initial research and feature interviews for it when a death in my family forced me to take some time for myself. However, Alex stepped up to the plate and took over the writing process turning my rambling interviews and barebones story outline into the in-depth well written feature.
I think by having this story become a tag team effort it helps show what the shipping industry really is. It’s not one person that gets a spud from the field to the grocery store or restaurant, instead it’s a team of people who move it along every step of the way.
In our feature story we detail how you growers work with the teams that buy your spuds to get them from your fields and storages to their production facilities. In some cases that requires logistics teams through your associations and groups, custom haulers or your own on farm team. But at the end of the day, it’s a team effort, just as it was for us to deliver you this story.
So, thank you to the team who made this story possible. From the sources who took the time to talk with me to Alex who made this story a reality, I couldn’t have done it without your help.
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