Middle men

Sorry for not posting for a few days. I've either been driving or we've been in poor reception areas.

Many of the items we haul seem to be going to or from some sort of middle man. From what we've seen, very few products go directly from the producer to a direct retailer. More often than not we're picking up at a processor and taking it to a distributor. With as many hands that "touch" or handle a product it's little wonder things cost so much.

The load we have now takes the concept of middle man to the extreme. We have a load of red bell peppers that are being hauled all the way across the United States but were not grown by or will they be consumed by Americans. The peppers were grown, picked, and packaged in Mexico and then taken to a warehouse in Chula Vista, CA where we picked them up. We are now hauling them to a warehouse in Romulus, Michigan where they will be picked up by a Canadian trucking company and taken to Ontario, Canada for ultimate consumption.

For those folks who are worried that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will result in foreign trucks driving all over America it obviously doesn't affect ALL items.