Cold cargo picks up during Alaska summer

June 23, 2009|by Ted Land

Betsy Bacon with Alaska Airlines Cargo (Joshua Borough/KTUU-DT)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The business of food transportation is picking up now that summer is here.

Alaska seafood is in high demand down south, and residents here are yearning for fresh-picked produce, and it's a constant struggle to keep everything fresh.

At 6 a.m. at the Alaska Airlines cargo port, a shipment of organic produce arrives from Seattle.

It's all kept in a massive refrigerator before heading off to places as distant as Bethel, Dutch Harbor and Barrow.

There is a hint of urgency in the air -- the last thing the cargo handlers want are fruits and vegetables going bad.

Besides produce and seafood, cargo handlers deal with pharmaceuticals, tropical fish and even human blood. The challenge is to keep it moving and keep it fresh.

This is just one link in the so-called "cool-chain" of perishable foods, and it's becoming stronger.

Alaska Airlines started a new training program for workers who handle precious cargo like king salmon. They want to make sure that the cargo is not affected by dirt, dehydration, heat or sunlight.

It's basically a computer program that shows them food quality guidelines.

"The primary overall thing that we're trying to teach our employees is to make sure that they keep it cold, they keep it clean, and they keep it moving," said Betsy Bacon with Alaska Airlines Cargo.

And with good reason. Alaska seafood is growing in popularity -- and it's traveling further, with the same expectations of freshness.

"Just recently I spoke to someone in the Boston market and actually in Washington D.C. as well," said Bacon.

Next door at Northern Air Cargo, much of the same safety procedures are in place.

Its export business picks up significantly in the summertime.

"With fish and with hunting and those types of things we do get a lot busier shipping meat back to Anchorage and fish back to Anchorage," said Margot Wiegele with Northern Air Cargo.

Most of the fresh food in the refrigerator will be sent to villages.

Back at Alaska Airlines, the organic produce is loaded into a truck in under an hour.

"Constantly we do quality and freshness checks and make sure that everything is up to the standards that we believe in," said Jonathan Stout with Full Circle Farms.

It'll be on customers' plates by the end of the day.

Some produce wholesalers prefer to ship their products by sea. They say they'd rather not use air freight because it's more difficult to control the temperature during the flight.

Contact Ted Land at tland@ktuu.com

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