National Truffle Day – Shipping and Material Handling Brings Them to Your Table
By Alex Batty, MHI Marketing Communications Coordinator |@mhi_alex
It’s National Truffle Day. I know. Why is there a National Truffle Day?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Seriously though, there are so many national days that I would have never thought of to celebrate. But if you Google ‘national days,’ it’s a wild adventure. Highly recommend.
Also to clarify, I’m talking about the fungus, not the magical chocolatey bites of awesome.
But upon learning that today was National Truffle Day, my mind embarked on a journey that immediately tied it to supply chain.
How? Well…
Okay. So truffles. They’re fairly well associated with France (at least in my mind). In the 1780s, truffles were very popular in Parisian markets and were even cultivated (aptly termed trufficulture) as early as 1808. While their natural fields took a pretty big hit in the World Wars, France is still a major exporter of truffles, which means shipping.
Huh. Not that convoluted of a journey. Truffles -> France -> Exporting/Shipping. Anyway.
Truffles go bad pretty quickly, so they need to be packed in a specific way and shipped quickly so that truffle-lovers can put them in their foods. They need to be kept dry to prevent rotting from moisture. The traditional way to store truffles is in an airtight box of rice or sand. This means they need to be handled carefully in transit so that the airtight seal isn’t broken and the truffles inside aren’t bruised or damaged.
This is where material handling comes in handy. We know how to get the stuff from A to B still looking like the stuff. We make sure truffles and other expensive/treasured/high quality items arrive to you in the same state in which they were sent.
So if you’re ever in some fancy restaurant and they sprinkle magic truffle bits on your food for that je ne sais quoi quality that I don’t have the palate for, remember to thank material handling and supply chain for helping them to get there.
(P.S. Truffles can be found in multiple locations, including the US, but only in specific locations, so still shipping. Let me have my France/international exporting moment.)
