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Supply Chain Now
The Buzz: World Cup Logistics, PepsiCo’s Autonomous Future, & Forklift Safety Innovation
00:48:41
On this episode of The Buzz, powered by APL Logistics, hosts Scott Luton and Richard Donaldson break down the latest developments shaping global supply chains, transportation, technology, and workforce safety. From geopolitical developments impacting global shipping lanes to autonomous trucking, World Cup logistics, and innovative warehouse safety solutions, this conversation delivers timely insights on the trends supply chain leaders need to understand.
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- [00:02]
Richard Donaldson
Curious about the latest trends in the
- [00:04]
Scott Lewton
world of freight, dive into our exclusive coverage of the U.S. bank Freight Payment Index and U.S. bank's new quarterly Rates Edition.
- [00:12]
Richard Donaldson
In partnership with DAT Freight and Analytics,
- [00:16]
Scott Lewton
the index provides deep national and regional insights. The Rates Edition provides a unique marketplace view of freight rates. Visit freight.usbank.com to explore these quarterly reports and sign up for updates. For a dynamic take on this information and to learn what's happening now in
- [00:36]
Richard Donaldson
the business world, subscribe to Supply chain
- [00:39]
Scott Lewton
now on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Supply Chain, now, the number one voice of supply chain. Join us as we share critical news, key insights and real supply chain leadership from across the globe. One conversation at a time. Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you may be. Scott Lewton and Richard Donaldson back with you here on Supply Chain now. Welcome to today's Live Stream. Richard, how you doing today?
- [01:11]
Richard Donaldson
Scott Doing fantastic. It's Monday, it's summertime, the gears getting going, the barbecues are getting fired up and hey, you know, what's not to enjoy?
- [01:19]
Scott Lewton
What is not to enjoy, especially if you're a Knicks fan. Right?
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Richard Donaldson
Right. Oh goodness. I mean I think New York, that was a celebration. Talk about that. Geez, what a great win for those guys. You know, long time coming. But think, I think New York did it, did a good job of celebrating.
- [01:32]
Scott Lewton
You know, congrats to all of our friends out there that are New York Knicks fans. What an incredible team displaying all sorts of resilience throughout the playoffs. So congrats and may the party continue. But folks, today it's the Buzz where Every Monday at 12 noon Eastern time we discuss a variety of news and developments across global supply chain and business news that matters, what we like to call it. And folks, the Buzz is brought to you by our friends at APL Logistics. All month long in June, APL Logistics is supply chain logistics provider specializing in order management solutions operating from 180 locations across 93 countries. Okay, so Richard, big show here today. Let's see here. We've got a peace deal between the US And Iran. So what comes next? That's one thing we'll talk about. Hey, PepsiCo is investing more and more into autonomous trucks. Stay tuned for that. Hey, what about the logistics behind the fabulous World Cup? We'll talk about it. And it comes a screw worm. So watch out. Beef supply chains everywhere. It's quite a leap from the World cup to a screw worm. Richard. I got to work on that. Better. But all that more and in about 15 minutes or so we're bringing in a special guest. Brody Cook with Fork Mule is going to be here. Met Brody and his award winning business through our friends at Modex and mhi. And you're going to enjoy gaining his perspective. So Richard, that's a lot. Are you ready to go here today?
- [02:53]
Richard Donaldson
Let's do it.
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Scott Lewton
Let's do it. And hey folks, Trisha is going to be with us all day dropping links. So you'll check it out. You want to click away. She's shared a link there to APL Logistics&T squared is back. T Squared. Great to see you, my friend who holds down the for for us on YouTube. Bring on the nourishment and lemonade for it. Good stuff there. T squared. All right, so where are we starting here? I think we got four things Richard we want to hit for. Brody comes in. And up first is with that said, which we dropped over the weekend, of course, our almost weekly newsletter. And we let off with a timely, practical message from Marty Parker, focused on managing stress and burnout. Folks, you gotta take care of yourself before you can effectively take care of your team, right? And leaders out there. Hey, if you aren't taking regular stock, finger on the pulse on team stress levels, you're slipping on your duties, right? We gotta do better. So I invite you to check out Marty's perspective along with a bevy of tools and resources and some terrific live shows. Richard, did you know we have a live show every day this week, if I'm not mistaken.
- [03:57]
Richard Donaldson
Oh my God, Scott.
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Scott Lewton
It's crazy, isn't it?
- [03:59]
Richard Donaldson
Richard, take, take heed your own advice here, man. You got, you can't work that hard. You gotta, you gotta slow down a little bit.
- [04:04]
Scott Lewton
It's so true, man. So did you get a chance, Richard?
- [04:07]
Richard Donaldson
Yeah.
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Scott Lewton
Did you get a chance to check out what that said this weekend?
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Richard Donaldson
Yeah, yeah. So, so. And I think I want to go back to just kind of the health right benefits. And I think that's a, that's a big trend that's going on right now. I don't want to say it's a trend so much as it's a reflection and kind of where we are as a society. I mean, the world's moving at a pace that's just ridiculous. AI everything, you know, space, blah, blah, blah. And you know, taking stock of yourself, taking stock of your health. You know, you're gonna get to beef later a bit here. We're going back and forth on health standards, but I think in a way over the last 20 years, I don't Know if we lost sight of it. But it's coming back into focus now. And it's not just an individual thing, it's a team community thing. Right. And I think you see that in, you know, again, we're gonna talk about the World cup later. You know, just the athleticism that's out there. You know, your health is probably one of the most fundamental things that drives so much of everything else that goes on in this world. You know, longevity, peace of mind, serenity, you know, whatever you want to get into. And it's not woo woo stuff anymore. This is, this is stuff that we're kind of coming back to the basics, which is if you're not healthy, everything else kind of falls apart. And to put it into sort of a supply chain kind of United States perspective, one of the biggest problems we have in the United States is we're just not the healthiest country in the world, let's be honest. Right. So we've got to kind of get back to that. And I think there's some movement to that.
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Scott Lewton
Richard, all well said, all well said. And folks, two things. Again, we got to take care of our team. Marty offers some perspective there, as did Richard. And number two, I like this quote here from Dr. Jordan Peterson, which is a new resource to me. At least take care of yourself like someone worth taking care of. A charity starts at home, as they say. We gotta, we gotta make sure we're healthy and rested so we can take care of all the others out there. All right, so folks, check out what that said. Let us know what you think. And Trisha, you're gonna be busy today. She has dropped a link right there. You're one click away from checking it out. Okay, Richard, from with that said, some of the easy and the very intuitive stuff. 2 as outlets are reporting everywhere, the US and Iran have reached some sort of peace deal. Some have even said it's been digitally signed already, but it's set to be traditionally or old fashioned, signed on Friday, June 19, I think in Geneva. So kind of condensing down what I've read through. I'll get your take too. But straight of Hormuz is supposed to be getting demined. US blockade on Iran. Shipping and port activity is being lifted when they sign, I guess on Friday. And I think the best news here, all military operations are being halted.
- [06:25]
Brody Cook
Right.
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Scott Lewton
However, the Wall Street Journal and others have reported that this peace deal now gives way to 60 days of more negotiations over really big items such as a nuclear program in Iran. And we know there's A lot of space between the sides there, right? What one party wants versus what the other. So for me, it's just my take. I welcome an end to hostilities. That's great news. We know we got a lot more work to do and I'm really curious to see this next stage of negotiations. And one last thing, when shipping starts to normalize and these numbers here get moved. This is as of June 3rd. And folks, the data speaks for itself there in terms of the massive drop off. That's a couple, couple weeks old. But it's really tough, Richard, getting timely trusted information on actual vessels passing through the strait. But there's not a whole bunch. And then one last thing. According to a couple reports, There is now 354 ships or vessels waiting there in the Persian Gulf to make that passage. And folks, that's going to take a lot of time. We got to get it safe to travel first and then we got to free up the mother of all bottlenecks. So. But Richard, your thoughts? It's still some good news. Your thoughts?
- [07:31]
Richard Donaldson
That's kind of the, I don't want to say myopic, but there's a very specific view on the very specific things that are problematic right now. And I take a step back and look at the global holistic view. The Iran leadership, you know, whether we like it or you know, have to admit since 1979 has been a problem. And this conflict started on February 28th. So we're about just a little over a hundred days into this, right? And in that conflict timeframe We've lost 13 service members, US service members, which is tragic as always, but minuscule by comparison to any other conflict out there. Also, simultaneously we've taken out close to 60, 65 of probably the most ruthless terrorist minded leaders the world has ever known. And so this isn't a negotiation, you know, and I think that's the thing we have to take in mind here. We're not negotiating with Iran of six months ago. We're negotiating with Iran that's still evolving. And when I mean that evolving, you got to take a look at the Middle east. You got to take a look at the opportunities that have been created here, which is Iran is no longer led by the same people anymore. And even that's fractured to the point that, you know, sometimes we're not exactly sure who's there. But what we do know is about 90, 95% of the population of Iran is fully supportive of getting rid of something they haven't wanted since 1979. So I think when you start to take a step back and look at this holistically. We're in a position right now where the Middle east is fairly united to contain and change Iran. Iran itself is forever been changed based on the current actions. And no matter what happens in these negotiations, we're at a juncture right now where things looking forward are never going to be the same again. We're not stuck in the same endless cycle of negotiating with someone who's going to, you know, promote terrorism and promote all the things that are out there. And I think from that standpoint, this has been a massive success. And I think that's missing in most of the coverage. I think it's missing in most of the perspective.
- [09:09]
Scott Lewton
Okay, so we differ a little bit on how we view this, and we should. We could have a full conversation and, you know, one person's myopia is another person's pragmaticism. But I said all those words.
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Brody Cook
Right.
- [09:22]
Scott Lewton
But you know what, Richard, One thing. I'll just mention two things. Number one is undeniable. You know, the Iranian people, you got to separate Iranian people from the government that, you know, has quite a history of terrorism, supporting terrorism. That's number one. And number two, I believe that your to your comments about kind of being in a different spot versus where we're six months ago. Agree with you on one hand. But on the other hand, I think Iran has got a new taste of its leverage that it is targeted using for decades. And it was extremely effective. And I'm really curious to see, once we hopefully get past this with the next round of negotiations and we put it to bed, how that factors into strategy and diplomacy and trade and security in the region for years to come. So we'll see though, right? We'll see. I wish my crystal ball was working better. Your last word? Your last word.
- [10:09]
Richard Donaldson
Oh, no, no. I was going to say is, is. You're absolutely right. I mean, there's no right or wrong answer here, Scott. That, that's kind of the whole thing. And, you know, everyone's got a perspective on it and. And I think you're absolutely correct. And you know, the only thing I'd end on is the undeniable fact is, within Iran itself, and this is the problem, is we're not exactly sure who the government is. And I think that's something that we have to take stock in, which is, as of right now, the irgc, the military faction, is the one who's really trying to continue to exert control. They're fading very quickly. And if that Fades, then, you know, who are we negotiating with? A whole different view of what Iran could look like.
- [10:41]
Scott Lewton
Yeah, we shall see. But you know what? We can all celebrate that hostilities have been terminated for now. And that's a great thing. And let's see what other traction we can make. All right, good stuff, Richard. And going back to the undeniable, inarguable theme earlier, T squared says, hey, treat yourself like someone you love. That's right. That is right. All right, so two more things before we bring on the one and only Brody Cook. The next thing I want to share, there was a little bit of big news. There's lots of big news last week. Gosh, we've been talking, we've been tracking this almost every time you join, Richard, because you are a sort of an aviation professional and a pilot. And of course, we're both space nerds. So SpaceX had a historic IPO last week. I think this is a shot of Elon Musk as a kid. I don't know. But Richard, your thoughts on how it all went down?
- [11:28]
Richard Donaldson
Well, I'll be honest, I got in as early as I could on the IPO myself. I think this is one of the biggest investment opportunities that you're going to see in your lifetime. You know, short of data centers, short of, again, my example of East India Dutch company, you know, laying the groundwork for the infrastructure and the trade and the supply chain that's going to go into space. And SpaceX isn't, is, is an infrastructure company. What Elon Musk has created here is something that, you know, literally provides Internet services to the world, provides the infrastructure that's going to lay the groundwork for supply chains extending into space and back and forth. So. And this IPO not only has been long overdue and welcome, but it, you know, it's also created an enormous amount of wealth for an enormous amount of people. So on all fronts, it's a super positive step forward. I think, again, when you kind of look at it pragmatically, it's. It's nothing but awesomeness for not only Musk and his teams, but quite frankly, for kind of the evolution of humanity itself as we sort of extend our footprints into space.
- [12:21]
Scott Lewton
Outstanding. I can't wait to see where we go from here. This has finally happened. I think Richard was definitely one of the many just waiting and waiting and waiting. Not maybe doing more doing than waiting, but we'll see where we go from here. And Jeremy says. Jeremy's back with us. Like when Network Solutions ipo, but much larger, much larger. And he says, hey, tell a management consultant how a trillionaire can manage it. We'll find out all together. All right. So one more thing. So much to get to here today. One more thing before we bring in our what I think is going to be an awesome guest. You know, it is remarkable what our friends at Easy Post have been up to. And I think we've got a live show coming up soon with the one and only Lori Boyer. I think that's one of our live shows this week. In the meantime, folks, check this out. You know, I love a good case study. This one features a recommerce marketplace that ships over 25,000 packages a day.
- [13:13]
Richard Donaldson
Wow.
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Scott Lewton
Working with Easy Post, they saved over $2 million. This might be even better. They had 273,000. That's right, 273. Followed by a common three zeros fewer late deliveries. And get this, it didn't require new carriers or renegotiated contracts. No new headcount was added to the organization. Winner, winner, chicken dinner, folks. Get all the details in the link we dropped and reach out Easy Post to see if that is something you can do, too. Richard. Oh my gosh, 273,000 fewer late deliveries. That's probably far more worth than the $2 million that they saved, huh?
- [13:48]
Richard Donaldson
Well, that, and I don't want to lose sight of the fact, too. It's a, you know, it's a recommerce. Right. It's another thing that's something you and I have talked a lot about, which is this sort of evolution of where supply chain and circularity is coming in. And we're seeing a lot of these companies, you know, that, that are not piggybacking but accelerating the circular economy in a way. And I think this is another example of that. I mean, kudos to them for everything that they're successful with. But underneath it all is the foundational element of really getting into the circularity concept.
- [14:12]
Scott Lewton
Yes, yes. Well said. All right. So folks, all of that brings us to a great guest joining us here on the Buzz. Powered by APL Logistics, Brody Cook has spent over 15 years in the material handling industry and his organization, Fork Mule won a competitive best startup solution at Modec 2026 right here in Atlanta, brought 50,000 people out. We're going to learn more about that here today. So I want to welcome in from the great state of South Carolina, please join me in welcoming Brody Cook, president of Fort Mule.
- [14:41]
Brody Cook
Hey.
- [14:42]
Scott Lewton
Hey, Brody. How you doing today?
- [14:44]
Brody Cook
Hey, good, Scott. Thanks for warm introduction, Richard.
- [14:46]
Scott Lewton
Hey, guys, great to see you. Great to see you. We enjoyed the green room. We were talking about all things World cup and much, much more. But before we get more into that kind of stuff, Brody, I got to celebrate something. You know, when we were talking a few weeks ago, I learned, Richard, that me and Brody Cook grew up almost in the same neck of the woods, right. Maybe a county or, or two over. And when I was talking to Brody, I used a bit of a local landmark to determine where he was. And that is the big peanut, which is located in Pion, S.C. and Brody, as I told you, I drove past this on State Road 302A thousand times when I was in school and when I was living in Columbia, and I never stopped in to see what they had to sell beyond peanuts. Was that a good move or a bad move? Brody?
- [15:34]
Brody Cook
Probably one of the best decisions of your life, not, not to stop in that is a landmark for you. I don't know. It's one to be proud of. You know, every, every small town has its festival, the peanut festival, and I think that's where it derived from. But great decision, Scott.
- [15:52]
Scott Lewton
Hey, appreciate that. And did you know, Richard and Brody, while Georgia has cornered a market in terms of peanut production, I think it's like somewhere between 50 and 60% of national peanut productions in Georgia. Hey, South Carolina still gives 5 to 7% on average of national peanut production. So there's something to be said there. But hey, Brody, you grew up in North South Carolina, the city of North South Carolina, and you live in the pillion area. Now. What's the coolest thing about living in that part of the country?
- [16:19]
Brody Cook
You know, for me, it's just a small town. Everybody's close knit. You know, North's literally a town. Population of probably around 1500 people now within the town limits. And billion's a little bit larger and it's growing, but you know, just community. You know, from church, the small town ball fields, I love it.
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Scott Lewton
And the hot dogs on those small town ball fields, which is always one of my favorite things. Richard. Now, Richard, I think you call what Scottsdale or Arizona or I guess Scottsdale home in Arizona.
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Richard Donaldson
Right?
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Scott Lewton
Richard?
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Richard Donaldson
Scottsdale is the closest for everyone. But just, just to be specific, like Brody, I live in a little town called Carefree on the north edge of Scottsdale, which is also about up 3,000 residents, something like that. So it's a small little community that sits just on the north edge of Scottsdale.
- [17:00]
Scott Lewton
Okay. And a bit hotter.
- [17:02]
Richard Donaldson
No, I actually, no, actually. Well, no, ironically, we're a Little cooler up here. We're about 1500ft, 12,000ft, 1500ft above Scottsdale. So, you know, when it's 120 in Scottsdale, it's only 105 here.
- [17:12]
Scott Lewton
Okay. All right, I gotta figure out that math. I'll tell you. Well, Brody, great to have you. And Richard, I'm looking forward to diving in here with Brody. So let's do this. We're going to start with some news stories here on the Buzz, powered by our friends at APL Logistics. We're going to walk through three or three stories or so, and then we're going to pick Brody's brain about a few things here. But I want to start with the news. So let's see here. Let's take a look at what is powering Generation Next Forward. As reported by Supply Chain Dive, the food and beverage giant PepsiCo is expanding its use of autonomous trucks. That's where we're getting Generation Next from. I remember the commercial big campaign back in the late 90s. And then prior to that, I think it was PepsiCo or Pepsi was the next generation, as I recall. I don't know. It's building. PepsiCo is building on a partnership with Gaddock which began in 2022. And they currently have 41 autonomous trucks deployed across Texas, Arizona and Arkansas. But that's going to change. They're going to grow that. PepsiCo said the following in a statement, quote, autonomous trucking, particularly on short, repeatable routes, has the potential to support more consistent operations and reduce variability, helping us deliver a more dependable service experience. So obviously, PepsiCo's delivery is leveraging rather modern technology in a number of ways. And one of my favorite live webinars last year, I think we might have a graphic here. We featured a warehouse leader from PepsiCo that talked about the cool things they were doing with Agenic and other technologies in their warehouses. So, folks, we're going to drop a link to that. You got to check it out. All right, so, Brody, back to autonomous trucking. Your thoughts on the continued march forward in this, in this technology that we've been tracking for, I don't know, eight,
- [18:53]
Brody Cook
10 years, I don't see that changing. You know, I think it's going to continue to grow. And I think we're just now getting point where, you know, this stuff is really working. People are seeing that it's working. It's kind of been a concept up until now. And, you know, the streets and no different than me in my personal life. I took my first Uber ride and Uber the other week. And you know, we were just amazed at how well it worked.
- [19:14]
Scott Lewton
Oh, I love it. I love, it's fascinating. I tell you what. Okay, so Richard, as Brody said there, it's going to keep marching forward, no doubt. Your thoughts, Richard?
- [19:24]
Richard Donaldson
Well, you know, piggybacking on Brody here. I think there's some other areas where autonomy, you know, autonomous kind of capabilities have already, you know, exhibited themselves, especially when you get into the heavy industrial kind of caterpillar side of the equation. Right. Most mining operations now globally are run by autonomous caterpillar, you know, capabilities and have been for quite some time. And they've fully automated that arena. It's reduced friction, it's actually reduced a lot of, and I know Brody's gonna be near and dear to his heart, you know, a lot of injuries and things like that with people associating with, working with heavy machinery and we'll get to that with the fork mule. But furthermore, it's, it's just a step in the direction of kind of where we are as a, as a world where technology is allowing us to bring this autonomous kind of capability in. I think it's always an interesting conversation, but it's, it's an inevitable step forward. Right. When you think about everything else that has been made more autonomous, you know, logistics, shipping, delivery, packages, I mean, driving, just like Brody's talking about. So it's, it's not something to be fearful of, it's just something to embrace and it's a natural extension of, of what should, you know, what is coming.
- [20:22]
Scott Lewton
It's so true. So a couple final thoughts and we're going to talk logistics behind the World Cup. Trisha has dropped a link to the PepsiCo article, right. Where they're investing more in autonomous trucking. She's also dropped link to that PepsiCo Warehousing Excellent Webinar we had here. And then the last thing you know, Brody was mentioned Uber. And Richard, I cannot remember the driverless competitor. Yes, way more. Okay, good. So we're talking about Modex a second ago and Brody And Richard, there's 50,000 people here in Atlanta for Modex, right. So it was at a Georgia World Congress, everybody was taking Ubers and stuff. And I had the opportunity when I was taking Uber back to the hotel to use Waymo instead.
- [21:00]
Brody Cook
Right.
- [21:00]
Scott Lewton
He gave me that option. However, having watched Waymo for years, especially in heavy traffic situations, be so careful and follow every rule. I knew it'd be a two hour commute to my hotel and I had to have a human driver willing to Break some rules. And I'm so glad because I had. I heard reports back that some of those treks back, especially from that peak time of leaving the Georgia World Congress center, took the Waymo passengers quite some time. Richard, have you ridden in the Waymo yet?
- [21:29]
Richard Donaldson
I have. And you know what's interesting about that, Scott, is, and you and I have talked about some previous episodes, but if you look at the models for autonomous vehicles on the road, and if all vehicles were made autonomous, you know, the snap of a finger today, you would reduce overall traffic by like, something in the neighborhood of like 50, 60% traffic, as you know, it would disappear. And so it's not Mamo necessarily, which is the irony of its capabilities that are limiting. It's still the fact that you got human beings driving around causing the issues that they have to be careful of. Right. So it's sort of a. It's a Faustian deal to some extent, because we got to give in to the autonomy to get the benefits. And until we do, 100%, it's always going to be a little bit staggered.
- [22:10]
Scott Lewton
Even those crazy humans driving, though. All right, so we'll come back on that. And Brody, when we take, when, when you take your first Waymo, you got to report back, give us the, all the details. Let's see. We're going to go to another top of the World cup in just a second. I want to circle back to space, Jeremy. And we're Talking about the SpaceX IPO a minute ago, Brody. And Jeremy says, hey, I love space. Geeky, delicious stuff, but humans in space strikes me as. Or fish on the beach. And I think that's like, those are the fish that get stuck on the beach, Richard. I think if I'm not mistaken, we shall see. All right, so let's talk about. Let's talk about the World Cup. That's what everybody's talking about these days. So unless you've had your head buried in the sand somewhere, and of course I'm guilty of that occasionally, then you know that one of the biggest sporting events really of the decade started last week, the 2026 World Cup. And our friend David Shillingford reported on some of the logistics behind this big event a few days ago. So consider this first. This is what. This is what the. The key ingredients. They gotta delight and satisfy. A12. 148 players representing teams. 48 teams from around the world. 104 matches, 16 cities, 3 countries, 39 days, competing for almost $730 million in prize money. Get this. David shares Some of These other things, £19.68 million of specialized turf has had to be grown at farms across the U.S. they're going to use over 2,000 soccer balls. Football, footballs, I guess match balls is what David called them. And they're made, get this, in Pakistan, where 70% of the world soccer balls come from. I didn't know that. 20 million pounds of broadcasting equipment will be moved. Goodness gracious. And 5,000 vehicles. And finally, I was talking about those ballpark hot dogs earlier, Brody in North South Carolina. 6,000 tons of concession food and 16.7 million drinks for the crowds. I've seen most of those were beers. I think all of that comes with the logistics of the World Cup. So I got two part question for Brody and for Richard Brody. First, your prediction of who's going to win the World cup and secondly, your comments on all those logistics.
- [24:22]
Brody Cook
I'm going to go to the goal USA here. Just my lack of better knowing, but we're going to go Team usa, you know, on the, the logistics of it all. You know, just kind of my, my mind. Frank Raider training day to day. You know, I go directly to just all the extra, on getting temp workers to extra personnel facilities to make all this stuff happen. And you know, the, the added risk in doing so with people that, you know, may not do this job on a day to day basis. And you know, I see a lot of that at trade shows. Things getting set up where you're bringing in a bunch of extra people, throwing temp workers on equipment that may not have the experience that they really need to make things like this happen, you know, so from a safety aspect it really comes into play.
- [25:06]
Scott Lewton
So Brody, that's an excellent connection. In fact, that's going to come up in the next story as well. Richard, same two part question. Who's going to win, you think? And your thoughts on all that has to happen.
- [25:16]
Richard Donaldson
I got to follow up with Brody on that one. And of course rooting for Team USA is probably one of the first times in, in our history here we've got really a solid chance of at least making it pretty far into the, into the brackets. You can't deny the superpowers, right? So whether it's Brazil or Germany or France or Italy, uk, I mean you gotta, you kind of gotta bet on the European companies or that Brazil in particular. That's usually the odds on favorite as far as the logistics go. I mean again, I think Brody kind of summed it up. It's in Shillingford in particular. There's Nothing short of just extraordinary when you look at the volume of things that they have to manage, the volume of things that need to get done. But there's another side story that I think is really interesting here, too, which is that's, that's within the stadiums themselves. Outside of that, you also have the ancillary benefits of all this tourism coming in, visiting, you know, parts of the United States that people haven't seen before. And what I've actually been watching is the reactions of people visiting from other countries into the US and seeing how warmly invited and welcoming everyone has been. You know, Brody comes from small town, you come from small town. That alone has created a lot of goodwill towards the United States. A lot. There's a guy from Germany I've been watching, and he's been trying all these foods, from like Taco Bell to Waffle House and commenting how much he's enjoying that. Right. And that's that, that feedback, I think is, you know, that's going to benefit the whole unit kind of United States brand here kind of going forward. And I think it's a huge benefit.
- [26:30]
Scott Lewton
I'm with you. Comes in the nick of time. We'll take as much as we can get. And also the Waffle House folks, if you're enjoying the Waffle House experience for the first time, you can't go wrong with the patty melt plate on wheat, double hash browns on the softer side, and a few extra pickles. You place that order, you're going to be happy. Go check out Tricia's. Drop a link to David's post. David Shillingford, right. About the World cup logistics. That's just a tip of the iceberg. You want to go follow and connect with David Shillingford. He usually puts out interesting analysis almost every weekday morning. So go check it out. All right. I'll tell you what. Beef industry just can't seem to catch a break. Richard. So, folks, as we reported on here before, for a couple of years now, it seems like drought and plenty of other factors have hurt cattle numbers for months, if not years here in North America. And then along comes the new World screw worm. Now, this pest was thought to have been. It was eradicated 60 years ago, right? It was pushed out of the country, but it's back. It's threatening, get this, some $700 million in annual losses. Not total losses, annual losses. But great, here comes some $500 stakes. Ranchers, though, are using old and new tech in their efforts to battle the screw worm drones. The monitor herds more insecticides, different types of insect insecticides, even changing the birthing cycles so that the highly susceptible calves are born in the colder months where there's less flies. But workforce challenges. There's been a massive drop in available ranch hands in recent decades. Is one of the biggest headwinds for those fighting the pest. Kind of going back to what Brody was talking about. The article in the Wall Street Journal here talks about how they're. They're signing up from fence builders to other, you know, non cowboys or non ranch hands to join in to fight against the screwworm. One other issue, though, get this. The U.S. as I mentioned, eradicated the screw worm decades ago by leveraging sterile screw worms. That's a tough word to say, but once they defeated the pest, the. As you might imagine, the sterile screw worm supply chain was largely shut down. I bet there's not a whole bunch of demand for sterile screw worms out in the world. But now the US says it needs 500 million sterile screw worms a week. And that's five times the output of the single, single operating production facility that is in Panama right at this moment. Other sites are under construction, but it could be two years before the 500 million fly count, weekly fly count is met. So, Brody, no shortage of immense challenges facing the beef supply chain. Your thoughts about this screw worm battle?
- [29:09]
Brody Cook
Yeah, no, it's beef supply chain. I've got some close friends that are in this industry and, you know, they have faced just one after another challenge over the past few years, and it's tough where they're at today, and it certainly isn't going to help anything. You know, I think it's really the labor shortage that is driving the difficulty in this. And I think if they can't get all hands on deck and get this, we're just going to see the cost of beef continue to climb.
- [29:35]
Scott Lewton
Man. That's a pretty well grounded prediction there. Richard, your thoughts about the screw worm battle?
- [29:41]
Richard Donaldson
Well, you know, it's yet another example of sort of the expansion of humanity butting up against the, you know, nature itself, Right. It kind of goes back to kind of being healthy and everything else. You know, we've eradicated certain things before diseases. Even when you think about going back to even Covid, right. We're constantly kind of expanding human needs, human resources, human requirements, and nature itself has its own kind of guardrails that tries to put itself up. So here we are yet again facing something that we thought was eradicated, to come back in different forms. But it forces us now to kind of think, you know, more, more, longer Term forces us to get into, you know, patterns that allow us to kind of insulate ourselves against things like this from happening again, but they're still going to happen. So it's, you know, it's tragic that it's happening right now. And to Bertie's point, you know, it's kind of over and over again. It's the beef industry, of all things, get hammered, you know, public relations, prices, you know, health. But it's not that beef demand is going to go down anytime soon. In fact, I would argue beef demand is going to go up, given some of the healthy transferences that are happening right now. So they'll figure it out. But it's, it's just like, man, like every time we kind of think we got something figured out, it's like nature throws us into reminders like, nope, you don't.
- [30:49]
Scott Lewton
That's right. Nature's like, look, I've told y' all before, I'm in charge.
- [30:52]
Richard Donaldson
Yeah, right.
- [30:54]
Scott Lewton
One last comment before we move on. We dive in deeper with Brody here. You may be asking yourself out there, well, folks, if it's been eradicated, how can it come back? Well, it was eradicated in the States. Their efforts pushed it to where it was a problem in other places or, or eliminated the problem it was in the States so that, you know, bugs, just like birds and the other things still migrate to where there's opportunity. And so it is back. Well, we're going to keep our finger in the pulse of, of how the fight goes up. All right, before we dive into the Brody Cook hour or half hour maybe, I want to share this message from our friends at APL Logistics. Folks, you know, the biggest supply chain problem isn't always visibility. It can be the gap between the plan and what the network can actually deliver. Execution gap is a space between a supply chain plan and its actual financial outcome. It's what happens when a carefully built strategy for inventory, transportation and distribution fails to produce the margin working capital or service level results it was designed to deliver. That's where APL Logistics steps up. Company helps customers close the gap between what the plan says and how operations can actually deliver. Insight matters, folks, but execution moves the business. Click on the link that Trisha is sharing there to learn how APL Logistics can help you build a resilient supply chain that sticks to the plan. All right, so we'll dive into a few topics here. Richard and I enjoyed our our pre show chat with Brody Cook. But Brody, I want to talk about where we first met and I think that was via Modex programming. I got a picture here where Fort Mule was being recognized. Tell us about this.
- [32:29]
Brody Cook
Yeah, so that would be a picture of me on stage after winning the Startup solution of the year at MODX 26. I did not expect him to win that, but it's been great for me and the company. Fort Mule started as an idea and got us where we are today.
- [32:45]
Scott Lewton
That is awesome. And we're going to, we're going to shed some light on what Fort Mule does in a minute. But Richard, you've been in the startup game to beat out. I think there was 15 or 16 companies vying for that prize that bodies were referring to. Come out on top, man. That's like a great day, great month, great year, huh?
- [33:02]
Richard Donaldson
I mean, not only is a great achievement, you know, Brody deserves all that success and for Camule in particular, but I think the other thing that's highlights here is, you know, in the startup game and the technology game, people try to want to always be, you know, AI focused and what's the cutting edge of technology. And oftentimes some of the simplest problems that we have to solve, workplace injury, you know, problems where we've got like basic machinery, the things that Brody and Fork Mule have solved, those can win out and supersede things in a way that I think people, people oftentimes some of the, some of the biggest problems we have are staring us right in front of the face, right. Yet we try to like, focus on, you know, going to space or, you know, you know, cracking the atomic. And I think, to Brody's credit, and this is a great segue for him to go into what, what Fork Mule does has solved something that's, you know, when you hear it, you're just like, oh, my God, that's such a big problem. And no one has yet solved it. And I think that's credit to, you know, staying focused on something very simple.
- [33:53]
Scott Lewton
Well said, Richard. Well said. Let's do this. I want to make a quick plug. I'm a big fan of our friends at mhop. Right. They're the organization behind Modex and Promat. And it used to be Modex was the little sister, so to speak, of Promat. And Promat was a bigger show, but with 50,000 people coming to Modex, I imagine Pro Mat will still be a little bigger. It is something else. Quite a one, two punch, folks. Make sure ProMat 2027 in Chicago is on your calendar April 19th through the 21st, 2027. And you can learn more@promatshow.com Richard, I'm gonna do my best to kind of explain how this works. So the great y' all see may see, if you're, if you're watching us versus listening to us, you may see the graph that we've got pulled up there. And so it is a premium hardware addition that you add to your forklift truck.
- [34:41]
Richard Donaldson
Right.
- [34:41]
Scott Lewton
So that you can make the modifications. You know, when you're. You're moving the, the skids, I guess, right? Richard, you're moving the forks on the forklift. Sometimes you got to adjust them based on what you're lifting pallets or other, other items. And, you know, oftentimes I've driven a forklift. I bet Richard has, too. Oftentimes when you move those things manually, like masses do, you know, they're very heavy and they're unforgiving, and they can crush fingers. They can really ruin your day. And then going back to taking care of the workforce, we want to take care of the workforce. So what Brody has come up with in the fork mule team is adding this device where you can swing an arm out, and it makes it so much easier, and we give you more leverage and get your fingers out of the way for you to move those skids or the forks, you know, in or out. And that's, of course, what I think that might be Brody right there in the picture. Justin. That's what it looks like. Richard, does this make sense to you?
- [35:36]
Richard Donaldson
Yeah. And I think, Scott, that that's kind of the thing that I was trying to highlight there. This is when you see this, and the first thing, your reaction is like, how is this winning a Technology Startup of the Year award? And I think that's the point that you got to drive home here. There's a lot of very simple things that are problematic in our world today. It can be solved through relatively simple yet elegant solutions like this. When you total up the amount of injuries that are associated with just forklift operations on the forklifts are everywhere. I mean, they're ubiquitous. They, they, they move things around, they move pallets around. We've got automation in our warehouses to, you know, remove this stuff. But it's, if I'm not mistaken, if it's not hundreds of millions, it's billions. And this is healthcare. This is people injured. There's people going, you know, out of the workplace for a long time. That's losing your workforce. That's. And this addresses that smack on. And it's like, again, one of those things where it's like this huge problem that's Staring in front of the face that no one really wanted to tackle because they're all trying to solve, you know, crack an atom. And I think the Brody's credit and fork mules credit, they've hit this net and that's why they should have won
- [36:33]
Brody Cook
this competition to piggyback on what Richard said, you know, kind of falling up from where I left off there. You look at the world of forklifts, you still of the market out there that is positioning forks manually. You know, the best way to do it is with a hydraulic position or you push a button and it moves away fork. But you know, you, you've only got 20 to maybe slightly more than that percent of fort lifts out there that have that feature. So this is aimed at a market that is widely used and, and it's been a problem since the first forklift rolled out.
- [37:04]
Scott Lewton
That, that's perfect context. And I think one other element to your comments there, there's probably a reason why Only just over 20% of forklifts have that, that tech, that, that automated technology because it's very pricey. And so implementing that at scale across massive fleets can cost an arm and a leg. This to your point, offers lots of advantages for a fraction probably of the spend is my hunch. All right, so Brody, all that, right. I was gonna, I was gonna ask you for a grade on how I positioned fork mule. Do I, do I get a passing grade, my friend?
- [37:36]
Brody Cook
You get a pass. You get a pass. Yeah. All that seems spot on. It is a simple, cost effective way to move a fork.
- [37:42]
Scott Lewton
Awesome. Well, hey folks, we're going to make sure we drop the link to the website. They got some videos and more information about the fork mule journey. So Tricia, I'm sure we'll drop that in a second. So let's kind of broaden things out a bit. We've got a thousand more questions for you, Brody, and we hope to keep you as long as we can. You've spent over 15 years in the material handling industry. What are some of the trends that you're, I mean, and you're in and out of tons of facilities probably every day, every week. What are some of the trends that you're tracking the most right now, Brody?
- [38:11]
Brody Cook
Yeah, you know, from my side on the training's perspective, you know, everything we hear AI on everything and we hear, you know, the autonomous things, you know, autonomous forklifts like we talked about, autonomous trucks, autonomous forklifts and you know, anything from security cameras that are able to at an AI scale track forklift Incidents and near misses, things like that. Just the technology that's emerging to keep operators safe from built in camera systems that slow down when a pedestrian walks out in front of a forklift. So you're just that, that automated side of the industry, that, that is the trend and I see that continuing and getting stronger as we go.
- [38:48]
Scott Lewton
All right, Richard, you heard it from someone is on the front lines in warehouses and facilities probably I think every day. Richard, your thoughts on what we're seeing material handling wise?
- [38:58]
Richard Donaldson
Well, material handling wise. You know, I think Brody's, you know, the expert here and, and I think he's kind of nailed it, right. Automation's coming into everything. A slightly different question for Bode is here's Fork Mill, which I think is such a fascinating story. You know, in his 20 odd years of materials handling, you know, he identified a problem that's, you know, quite frankly, you know, kind of old school. Right. It's people injuring themselves, positioning forks. So even with automation, there's still a solution that fork, Fork Mule could come up with solve for that and you know, is going to be a very successful company as a result. My question for Bode is what else do you see out there in that arena that, that is so manual, so overlooked, yet so problematic? I mean this obviously the biggest one for you to go tackle, but do you see any other big gaping holes out there that automation isn't filling right away?
- [39:43]
Brody Cook
Yeah, I see other things as well out there in regards to moving forks on and off of the forklift. When it comes to more of your, your dealer side of the network, it's actually the, the labor on the forklift, taking a fork on and off of a forklift. It's a very heavy item and I'm working on some solutions there on that end as well.
- [40:02]
Scott Lewton
Well, we're going to have you back with the next breakthrough too. And in the meantime, I have dropped, Trisha has dropped a link to Fork Mule. Is simple just like it sounds fork mule.com check that out. And she's also dropped a link to Promat so you can meet more Brodies of the world in Chicago next year. All right, so Richard and Brody want to tackle a few of the topics. You know, we recently did a, an episode on pallets. Right. I think just my opinion, Brody and Richard, not wanting to offend anyone out there, but I think much like pallets are often overlooked. I think forklifts and how we operate them are very overlooked because they're so commonplace and it's just, you know, part of doing business. Right. In global business, global supply chain. But I want to ask you, and I think that that's why it presents such an opportunity. So when it comes to forklift operator training, Brody. And hey, I missed my day, Richard. When is the last time? For me, it's been 26 years, I think, since I last got on a forklift and had a blast working it in a facility in Wichita, Kansas. When's the last time you're on a forklift, Richard?
- [41:04]
Richard Donaldson
Oh, good lord. It's more than that. It's got to be in the 50 or not 50 years, but like 35 at least, right? I think I screwed around with a couple back in the day when I was doing some early construction jobs when I was in high school and college and stuff like that. But, you know, the funny thing is they haven't changed all that much in all that time frame. Kind of the point of the whole forklift fork mule journey, right? They're ubiquitous in a way.
- [41:24]
Scott Lewton
So this notion of autonomous forklifts, you don't see as nearly as much. You know, there's robotics, obviously, in warehouses and facilities everywhere, but you hear a lot more about autonomous trucking than you do autonomous forklifts. For now. However, according to some, autonomous forklifts grew to a $5 billion industry in 2025. Wow. It's bigger than I thought. Richard, does that surprise you? Not surprise you, just your general thoughts there.
- [41:50]
Richard Donaldson
Yeah, I mean, real quick again, it's one of those things that's so obvious, it kind of stares you in front of the face. You forget you're breathing oxygen. You forget that oxygen is super important. It's around you, it's ubiquitous. Forklifts are the backbone of any, you know, when we go back in the supply chain, what's, what's being used in the Amazon warehouse, but a forklift that's automated, that's moving stuff around, moving pallets around, moving boxes around, moving shipments around. You know, human beings can only carry so much, and forklifts have been, you know, kind of the backbone evolutionary of, of, of moving, you know, large quantities of objects. So I, I don't think I'm surprised that it's that big. I'm just surprised that, you know, people haven't tackled this problem sooner.
- [42:26]
Scott Lewton
You know, I am too. I am too. And we're going to keep our finger on the pulse of where that. Autonomous forklifts, autonomous trucking, robotics in general. It is a fascinating time here in the golden age of supply chain tech. Your quick comment, when it comes to autonomous forklifts, Brody, you see that taking off in the short term, but as
- [42:44]
Brody Cook
I'm in and out of the autonomous trucks, you know, on a small scale right now versus the bigger items, I think that's going to continue to grow. As warehouses develop in the way that they're designed, you're going to see more and more things going autonomous. That's just going to be the trend.
- [43:00]
Scott Lewton
Yep, I'm with you. But let me ask you this. As we shift gears, we start to come down the home stretch here. I am intrigued by your entrepreneurial journey and congrats again on the success you've had with Fort Mule. I can't wait to see what's to come. Brody, when it comes to the founder journey, right, and some of the top critical lessons you've learned since you start. When did you start the company? How long ago?
- [43:22]
Brody Cook
Brody so 2023 is when I started my, let's say, Ford list safety training company, Resource Industrial. Fort Mule was founded in 2024. Kind of a spin off as I saw a need in the market for this product.
- [43:35]
Scott Lewton
So over three years it said, when you founded your first company, what's been a top critical lesson or two that you learned from being an entrepreneur and what would be any advice you'd get offer up to wannabe founders out there?
- [43:49]
Brody Cook
Brody yeah, so I'd say that the biggest advice that I could give and things that I've learned kind of wrapped up in one statement is, you know, just go for it. I wish I'd have done it earlier. I've heard that a lot. But you know, don't think about it. That's not a one time decision either. It's the day to day decisions that you've got to make as a business owner, as an entrepreneur. You have to continually push and just say, yes, I'm going to do it. You know, it's, if you stall and don't do anything, it's never going to happen.
- [44:14]
Scott Lewton
It's good advice. Richard, I saw you nodding your head. Just do it like the old Nike campaign used to go.
- [44:20]
Richard Donaldson
Richard, your thoughts very literally so the thinking that I was coming from my experience, Silicon Valley, you know, and everything else. And I think this is, this is a testament if you really listen to entrepreneurs, people who started companies, you know, it's about execution, it's about going for it. It literally, that's it summed up, right? It's, it's the ideas you can ideate all day long and great to visit. Best business plan all day long, right? The best PowerPoint all day long. But at some point you just got to go do it because you're going to learn more from doing it and making mistakes that come from doing it than anybody else. And that's what they used to call first mover advantage. Right? But I think that point's been lost a long time ago. Execution, getting out there, doing it, learning, adapting, evolving. That's entrepreneurship summed up, right? A lot of the people who are successful just literally went out and just did it.
- [45:03]
Scott Lewton
Well said to you both. I would only add that, and this comes from my own personal journey. It's a timeless truth that is about you control what you can control. And one of the biggest things you can control is your mindset and how you react. Any news as you go through the journey Now? I'll think back of the day before I became a first time entrepreneur. That literally the day before was the toughest day of my life.
- [45:25]
Richard Donaldson
Right?
- [45:25]
Scott Lewton
And it would have been easy to go sulk in the corner and not do stuff and feel sorry for myself, all that stuff. But we channeled all that energy in founding my first startup the next day. And really that bad day was a blessing in disguise while we're here today. So folks, we can control that mindset. There's a lot of bad news out there, but there's always good news if you go looking for it. And that would be my corollary advice to what you heard the good stuff from Brody and Richard. We're going to make sure folks can connect with Brody and Richard here in just a second as we start to wrap the buzz. Folks, go check out our resource hub. It is exploding with written content, blogs, white papers, resources, you name it, including, as I mentioned, you know, we met Brody via Modex and we probably conducted about two dozen interviews there this year, including this one with Josh Klor with no magic, who talked a lot about from automation to autonomy, what AI robotics are up to when it comes to reshaping and really transforming warehouses everywhere, everywhere. So go check that out. All right. So Brody Cook, again, thank you for fighting the good fight. I really admire what you're doing and all those workforces that are leaning into opportunities like Fort Mule, they're taking care of their workforce and taking care of their workforce's digits, so to speak. And that's always good thing. How can folks track you down? Brody Cook?
- [46:47]
Brody Cook
So you can find me my Facebook page, which is simply Fork Mule. You can email me@infoorkmule.com probably one of the most direct ways to get me there is that info mule.com you can also find me on LinkedIn Brody Cook.
- [47:01]
Scott Lewton
And I bet you welcome any conversation whether they want to talk, whether they want to talk Fork Mule or if they want to get your thoughts on, on warehousing, optimization and workforce safety, all that good stuff. Is that right, Brody?
- [47:15]
Brody Cook
Yeah, absolutely.
- [47:16]
Scott Lewton
Awesome. All right, folks, to help make that easy we Trish has just dropped Brody's LinkedIn link.
- [47:22]
Brody Cook
Right.
- [47:23]
Scott Lewton
You're one click away from following or connecting with Brody. And we're also dropping again the URL simple fork mule dot com. All right, so Richard Donaldson, when you're not out there tracking all space stuff or flying the friendly skies, I gotta get it. We gotta get some video of you flying. Richard. We always, we gotta get the. We gotta prove it to folks. But so Richard, how can folks track you down?
- [47:49]
Richard Donaldson
My friend, LinkedIn's easiest. Always, always will be. Gotta. I've got a mainstay there. So my LinkedIn page, Richard Donaldson, easy to find and again, just like Bode and everyone else here, always open to connections, always open conversations. You know, whether it's space, supply chain or World cup predictions.
- [48:04]
Scott Lewton
Outstanding. We dropped that link right there as well. Folks, I want to thank Brody Cook, president of Fort Mule. Brody, thank you so much for being here and I wish you safe travels, my friend.
- [48:16]
Brody Cook
Thank you guys for having me.
- [48:17]
Scott Lewton
Yep, you bet. Of course. Gonna thank my great co host, Richard Donaldson. Richard, always a pleasure.
- [48:22]
Richard Donaldson
Always a pleasure, Scott.
- [48:23]
Scott Lewton
Thanks to our friends at APL Logistics. Be sure to connect with them@APL Logistics.com of course, big thanks to man and Trisha behind the scenes. Most importantly, thanks to our global audience for being here with us. I know we couldn't hit everybody's comment or question, but y' all keep the feedback coming. But you know you got homework, right? Richard will knows the homework. He's. He's gotten a pluses in every homework assignment this year, as a matter of fact. But take one thing that Brody or one thing that Richard shared and share it with your team. Do something with it. Put it into practice. Deeds, not words. That's how we're going to keep transforming global supply chain and leave no one behind. Except your competition maybe. With all that said, on behalf of the entire supply chain Now Team Scott Luton challenge. You do good. Give forward. Be the change that's needed. And we'll see you next time right back here on Supply Chain Now. Thanks for join the Supply Chain now community. For more supply chain perspectives, news and innovation, check out supply chain now dot com, subscribe to supply chain now on YouTube and follow and listen to Supply Chain now, wherever you get your podcasts,