Shipping-Hanjin

Shipping-Hanjin

Susan Allen
Susan Allen
I'm Bob Larson. The bankruptcy of the Hanjin shipping line threw ports and retailers around the world into a state of mass confusion, and northwest growers into a frantic scramble to find alternate modes of shipping, with added, unplanned expenses.

In the days prior to the bankruptcy, fueled by rumors, Canby, Oregon-based Pure Seed, was worried about a huge shipment of grass seed they were in the process of sending to a golf course in Dubai ahead of a major PGA event ...

LUCAS SOLIS-GS-2A = 17 sec ... "So our shipping team went ahead and reached out to Hanjin and said, 'hey look, we're nervous" and the clients that this particular product is going to, there's no leeway. We have to make sure the product gets to the market, and Hanjin basically was saying, 'oh, no, no, no it's business as usual. Don't worry about it'."

But, CEO Lucas Solis says within days, things were quickly falling apart ...

LUCAS SOLIS-GS-3A = 23 sec ... "And then what happened was, once the shipment got to Busan, got to the port, the story kind of changed a bit and we're seeing delays and the trans-shipment being missed and basically red-flags popping up all over the place. We got in touch with Hanjin and they basically said, at that point, look we have no intention on facilitating the route all the way to Dubai."

Solis says they considered several shipping options and wound up sending the remaining product through a more expensive air freight company out of Seattle.

Tune in tomorrow and find out more about this shipping scramble.

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