'The Food Supply Chain is Breaking': Food Security During a Global Pandemic | Lowell Randel
Hidden Forces
Demetri Kofinas
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2020
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Episode 135 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Lowell Randel, Vice President of Government and Legal Affairs for the Global Cold Chain Alliance, which serves as the voice of the cold chain industry, representing 1,300 member companies in over 85 countries. The two discuss the impact that COVID-19 and the government shutdowns have had on food supply chains, processing facilities, and the industrial farm sector.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant shifts in consumer demand away from food service businesses like restaurants and towards foot retail outlets like supermarkets and groceries. Food industry players are in turn looking to adapt, redirecting products originally destined for the food service sector to retail instead. This has created challenges for farmers that have led, in some cases, to the euthanization of livestock and the wholesale destruction of crops ready for harvest.
This episode uses the crisis caused by COVID-19 and the government mandated shutdowns in order to understand the vulnerabilities of our food supply networks with an eye on finding ways to improve their resiliency going forward.
You can access my conversation with TeslaCharts & Georgia Owell, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week's episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.
Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou
Subscribe & Support the Podcast at http://patreon.com/hiddenforces
Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Today's episode of Hidden Forces is made possible by listeners like you. |
| 0:04.4 | For more information about this week's episode or for easy access to related programming |
| 0:09.7 | visit our website at hidden Forces. I.O. and subscribe to our free email list. |
| 0:16.4 | If you listen to the show on your Apple Podcast app, remember, you can give us a review. |
| 0:21.5 | Each review helps more people find the show and join our |
| 0:24.9 | amazing community. And with that, please enjoy this week's episode. And the What's up everybody? My guest on this episode of Hidden Forces is Lull Randall, Vice President of Government |
| 0:55.5 | and Legal Affairs for the Global Cold Chain Alliance, which serves as the voice of the |
| 1:00.9 | Cold Chain Industry, representing 1,300 member companies in over 85 countries |
| 1:06.8 | around the world. |
| 1:09.2 | The food supply chain is breaking, according to the chairman of Tyson Foods, the second largest meat |
| 1:16.0 | processor in the world. As the coronavirus pandemic disrupt supply chains across the |
| 1:21.9 | country, farmers are being forced to destroy their |
| 1:25.2 | crops, dump their milk, and euthanize their livestock despite shortages at food banks |
| 1:31.2 | and empty shelves at supermarkets. If you're like me you see headlines |
| 1:36.2 | like this and you wonder are we running out of food? The problem is a bit more |
| 1:42.4 | complicated. |
| 1:44.0 | Partly, the shortages we're experiencing at our local Costco or Walgreens |
| 1:49.5 | result from the sorts of disruptions to processing facilities like those referred to by John Tyson. |
| 1:56.7 | In other cases, they reflect the challenges that come with trying to quickly transition |
| 2:02.2 | from servicing restaurants and cafeterias to |
| 2:05.2 | stocking grocery stores and supermarkets. |
| 2:09.2 | Just as with our financial markets, industrial supply networks, and hospitals. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Demetri Kofinas, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Demetri Kofinas and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.