4 Fun Facts about the Supply Chain and the 4th of July
By Alex Batty, MHI Marketing Communications Coordinator | @mhi_alex
This year marks 240 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, so we thought we’d bring you four fun facts for the 4th of July and how the stuff we use for the 4th gets around by using supply chain.
The Panama Canal has been undergoing a nine-year, $5.4 billion expansion and update for the century-old shipping path. It is expected to change the direction of global trade transport and reopened June 26, 2016. Which leads to Fun Fact #1 – The Panama Canal took longer to update than the entire American Revolutionary War. The war lasted 8 years, beginning in 1775 in Concord and Lexington (Midnight Ride of Paul Revere territory), and ending in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris.
Returning to the present, Americans consume on average 150 million hot dogs over the 4th of July holiday. Fun Fact #2 – If you lay those end to end, the mileage (~14204 mi) would allow you to truck hot dogs to the 10 largest cities in the United States, in order, and still have mileage to get back to Los Angeles and hit up the beach.
Another popular 4th of July food is the watermelon. Fun Fact #3 – In the US, Americans will spend $167.5 million just on watermelon over the holiday weekend. For that money, you can buy a private island off the coast of Thailand and still have some left to buy a mansion on the island. To put that $167.5 million in perspective, let’s look at how a single person could spend that money for their very, very exclusive 4th of July barbecue.
There are many cities that try to name themselves the “Watermelon Capitol” but Cordele, GA seems to be the most popular. For 167 million, you could pick the perfect pallet of watermelons and ship it overnight for $1911 to Charlotte, NC (MHI headquarters). You could also ship a second pallet of perfect watermelons to your buddy in Portland, OR for $5020. Assuming you somehow run out of watermelon during your barbecue and need more immediately, you could buy a top of the line Gulfstream 650ER ($66.5 million) to fly down and pick another pallet of watermelon and fly it back the same day to have more watermelon at your barbecue. But the 4th of July is usually a party weekend, so let’s do it all again the next day. That still leaves you around $34 million to ship out some hot dogs and fireworks for you and your other coast buddy to round out the weekend.
While we’re on the subject of shipping, let’s remember how long it would have taken to ship things back and forth between the UK and the Colonies back in the day. Fun Fact #4 – in 1776, it would have taken on average 6 weeks to ship something (like a crate of tea from the Boston Tea Party) from London to New York. Now it only takes about 7 days, thankfully.
