So imPORTant: Bananas, frogs, and... Bob's??

0:00This message comes from Bonterra. Your nonprofit's mission is big, but your team is small. With fundraising software from Bonterra's Network for Good, you can focus on changing lives. Big impact, less stress. Learn more at BonterraTech.com slash NFG. This is Planet Money from NPR. My eyes have been opened. I am a changed man, and it all stems from just a few days last week when there was a port strike, a port shutdown. Of course, this was not the first port disruption we have dealt with recently. Looking at you, COVID ports mess. But yes, you may recall the longshoremen on the eastern seaboard walked off the job.

0:47Those are the people in charge of basically everything to do with loading and unloading cargo containers. And those cargo containers are like the blood cells of our entire economy. And you know, Amanda, it is very scary when the old blood cells stop pumping suddenly. Which, of course, was the point of the strike. Yeah, you know, exert economic pressure and pressure they exerted. You know, people were freaking out during this shutdown. Like, would this cause toilet paper shortages? Would this cause inflation? Is this going to ruin Christmas? Kenny, you are saying people, but I think actually maybe you were the one freaking out, possible.

1:26I mean, did I stockpile dog food and diapers and show up to staff meetings raving about ports? Who can say? But I did start making a lot of port-related phone calls. Hello, Kenny. Hello, Steve. Thanks for reaching out. You were pitched to me as the man who knows all there is to know about ports. Okay, now I'm really in trouble. Stephen Flynn is a professor of political science at Northeastern University, a former Coast Guard officer, and has become a ports obsessive. I visit about every port in the world, a major port in the world. Something like 80 percent of the world's stuff by volume moves by ship in and out of ports, a constant water ballet of commerce to to keep food and fuel and life moving.

2:08Oh, this is like an incredibly complex but efficient system that everybody's taking for granted. Unless, let's say, it suddenly stopped overnight or something. Yes. Yes. And look, when that port strike ended or was suspended, it was about three days in. And I found a place to store my panic-purchased dog food. And Amanda, I decided I am not going to take ports for granted. Like, yes, in the, you know, it really matters and I hadn't thought about it way, but also in the way that you suddenly see new beauty and fascination after a near-death experience. Near-death, Kenny? Yeah, really? I mean, maybe overstating it, but I do find myself stopping to smell the port roses to appreciate the system more.

2:57Like, for example, you know, when I was talking to Steve Flynn, he had these great tidbits about ports that I cannot get enough of. I cannot stop telling people about them. And would you like to hear some of them? Yeah, sure. Okay. Number one. Yeah. Did you know that luxury goods often ship in refrigerated containers? So what are we talking about? What's a luxury good? Oh, I guess leather handbags, fancy belts, fancy shoes, things that are very expensive. Okay. Maybe leather maybe smells if it's not refrigerated? That was my guess also. But no. Maybe they do that. Are you intrigued, Amanda? I am intrigued.

3:37Okay, okay. It is not because you need it cold. They're not necessarily even using refrigeration. It is because, Steve says. Because on a ship and on a terminal, the boxes you keep track of are the refrigerated containers. Better idea is to put it in a box that doesn't need refrigeration, but just that you have the assurance that along the way there is control. Refrigerated containers, get more monitoring, have more safeguards. Okay. And I assume it costs more to have it shipped that way? Costs more, but the goods are so expensive, you don't care. It's worth it. Okay, super interesting fact, port fact one.

4:13I love it. What is port? You want more port facts? I would like another port fact, please. Well. Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Kenny Malone. And I'm Amanda Aronchik. Today on the show, ports. Ports! I learned so much about ports during the shutdown, and I cannot keep it all to myself. Today, we investigate why so many of our bananas come from Delaware. Did not know. We discover a way to see virtually every single thing that gets shipped into the country and learn how cookies and ice cream built a furniture empire. And Amanda, are you game to hashtag learn some hashtag pork facts through this hashtag episode?

4:54You know I am. Yes, I am. We're going to have a little sound for every port factor we have. It's going to sound like this. Insert here.

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5:53Twice Weekly Shows will feature in-depth debates and discussions with The Economist senior editors as they share expertise and analysis to make sense of an increasingly complex and dangerous world. More at economist.com slash insider. This message comes from Insperity. Excellence takes drive, work, perseverance. Tiger Woods brings it to the course. Insperity brings it to your business. Want to be the best? Work with the best. Insperity, how you HR matters. Learn more at insperity.com slash tiger. Okay, let's make a distinction right now because I can feel the anticipation. Yes, we are going to have some hashtag port facts sprinkled through this episode.

6:40They are amazing. And I have been saving them up to surprise my co-host, Amanda. Can't wait. I know nothing of port facts. Very excited to learn more. You do not sound excited. I am excited. I'm excited by your excitement, Kenny, and you are excited. Okay, port facts. That's going to be the seasoning through this episode. But the meat, the meat is really, I guess, three questions that we had when we were suddenly reading lots and lots about the ports when they were shut down. Right. We began with the first and I guess the most obvious question, what is on those boats? Yeah, what's coming in? Can we know specifically, like, what is getting imported through the ports?

7:23And to answer this, we got in touch with Michael Kanko, CEO of a company called Import Genius. Let me ask, are you the titular Import Genius? Our users are the Import Geniuses. Spoken like a true CEO. Import Genius is a company that provides import and export data to its users. And to give us an example, Michael and I pulled up this big old spreadsheet that is apparently a list of some of the stuff that came in through the New York, New Jersey port one day back in September. So what am I looking at? Tell me what these fields are. Well, the product description is the general description on the shipping manifest of what's in that shipment.

8:02Okay. So I'm looking there and I can see like, quote, upholstered furniture. And then another column, it says that there's almost 13 ,000 pounds worth of upholstered furniture. Another column says it came from Turkey. And another says that it was imported by a company called Empire USA. But also that very same day, you can see a big shipment of food. Biscuits. Purchase order number is 764-317. Coming in from Spain. Going to Goya Foods. Love Goya biscuits. Happy those are coming in. Glad to see it. Also that same day. Bubble milk tea drink. Boba tea. An 86 ,000 pound shipment of just the bobas or the tea.

8:45Do you know? I don't know. It might be other stuff too. Like some of these fields are not totally clear. But like, you know, you can see hotel soap and shampoo being imported by the Hyatt in Times Square. Knitted garments coming into Vera Bradley. Bathroom stuff coming in for big lots. I think to sell, not to put in their bathrooms for customers, although it doesn't say. I have no idea. I don't either. And one line item is literally just 36 ,000 pounds of, quote, Men's Slim Jeans. Just a bunch of tight jeans coming in. And a totally unnecessary qualifier. That is that CBP does not care whether they're slim or baggy.

9:24Right. That's CBP, Customs and Border Protection. It occurs to me that you get it when you look at this stuff. And if you guys are looking at this stuff, you get it's almost like seeing the matrix code for the whole economy. It's endlessly fascinating. And that's a good analogy. Now, the reason Mike has all of this is because, according to federal law, import information is technically public information. But like. It's public, it's not free, and it's unusable in the format that it comes in. For years, the data came to us by CD-ROM delivered by mail every day from some office in Northern Virginia.

10:02Yeah, and apparently some records are paper-only still, so some guy called Grant is in charge of getting those for the company once a week. But you can see why collecting all this data and making it usable is a business model. Import Genius is one of a number of companies that do this. Then other companies pay money to have easy access to all of this information. And like, look, looking at that big spreadsheet with the CEO of a tech data company, this feels very modern. But in fact, Michael says, this is one of the like oldest traditions in America, strangely. Back in the 1700s, the local newspapers and gazettes in the port towns during the colonial era would publish shipping manifests detailing what's about to arrive on a vessel.

10:48So it'd be like, here ye, here ye, new shipments of, I don't know, cured beef have arrived for all. That's exactly how I imagine it. It is shockingly not far off. We found a copy of a newspaper from 1795 and front page, quote, imported in the ship Sophia and Carolina. Hemp. Gin in casks. Cables and cordage. Looking glasses. And then obviously the best thing here, quote, velvet for lining and capes. Oh, you could make such a dapper cape if you just had the right lining. Not enough capes anymore. No, we all need to wear more capes. Now, look, obviously you can understand why this information was in the newspaper.

11:29Like, since virtually everything was imported into the country back then, customers would be wondering, like, hey, when can I finally line my cape or whatever? Carpe diem for the capes. But also, this information would be really useful to other merchants to know what they should be importing. Like, what do their competitors already have? What things aren't being imported yet? And really, that is the same role this data plays 200 years later today when companies use a service like Import Genius. And, oh, wait, oh, what is, what's that, Amanda? Do you hear something? Oh, goodness. Oh, it's so loud.

12:08The sound of our, we probably got to turn that down or else people are going to crash their cars. That is the sound of our next Hashtag Port Fact. Are you ready? When my ears stop ringing, I will be ready. Okay, I'm ready. Okay. So Michael and some of the other folks at Import Genius sent me a list of a very specific kind of shipment that they have noticed happening over time. And I would love to show this to you. Can you see this? I mean, it says live bullfrog. It does say live bullfrog because about six times a month, shipments of live bullfrogs come in. Why? Well, well, for eating, for frog legs.

12:48No. You don't like that hashtag port fact. I don't like, I don't like frog's legs. Like I - All I'm saying, all I'm saying is hashtag port fact. There are giant shipments of bullfrogs coming in monthly. Like this is what's happening. This is just what's happening. Unbelievable. It is a lot of bullfrogs.

13:10okay port question number two is about bananas bananas yes if you look at the import data you will see a peculiar banana pattern a huge chunk of the country's bananas come in through a single port wilmington delaware now most of america's bananas come from central america and like i I don't know, maybe this is naive, but I guess I must have assumed that they would then come into the country through like Florida or some ports on the Gulf. But no, Wilmington, Delaware, of all places. So our producer, Sam, spoke with someone just outside of Wilmington. Sam joins us now. Hello, Sam. Hi, Kenny. Hi, Amanda.

13:55Sam is waving over Zoom. You cannot hear that. But yes, welcome, Sam. It's true. I do wave. Yeah. So I got in touch with Tracy Levin. So bananas are in my family's blood. In 1906, my great-grandfather opened up a ripening cellar on Dock Street. Bananas would come off the ships. We would cut them off the stalks and ripen them in a cellar. So why Wilmington? Why do the bananas go through Wilmington? Well, first, the logistical answer. If you just used a port in Florida, yes, that is close to where the bananas come from. But Wilmington is close to where the bananas need to ultimately go to, population hubs.

14:31They're centrally located. People from New York actually come down to Port of Wilmington to pick up bananas here. People from Canada come down to Port of Wilmington to pick bananas up here. People from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina are still also coming up here to pick up bananas at the Port of Wilmington. Amanda, your Canadian childhood bananas may have come through Wilmington. Amazing. I've learned so much. Okay, so location, good for Wilmington. This is great. Yeah, and back in the 1970s, Del Monte Foods first started sending most of their bananas to Port of Wilmington, that nice central location.

15:03But here is what I think is the more interesting lesson. Once you have bananas going in through a port, that did something special. And here's how I think about it. Let's say you are shipping something different, like skinny jeans or pencils or scooters. Once those hit the ports, they are more or less ready to hit the shelves. But items like fresh produce need another stage before they end up in your and my smoothies. They need to ripen. And that is where Tracy's operation comes in. They are fourth-generation ripeners. And to do that, they have special ripening rooms for bananas. So people, when they see it, they're kind of blown away by the entire process.

15:40What do you mean you've ripened bananas? They don't just appear on the shelves yellow? As bananas started coming into Wilmington, a bunch of ripening centers cropped up to support that incoming produce. And now that those ripeners were nearby, Dole and Chiquita, you know, famous banana companies, they wanted to take advantage of those too. So they also set up contracts with Port of Wilmington. I love this. This is the classic econ idea of the cluster effect. If banana ripening infrastructure gets built around the Port of Wilmington, well, now the region around Wilmington has a comparative advantage for banana ripening.

16:16And please, Sam, tell me that you got access to a banana ripening room. I think I need to know everything about banana ripening. Yeah, so Kenny, I did get to visit one of the ripening rooms. We're looking at bananas that are placed three tiers high. Airflow is going around them. There is ethylene gas in the room as we squeak. You can kind of smell it. It's a little sweet. Now, ethylene gas is just the gas bananas already produce as they ripen. So the idea is that the bananas ship firm and green, so they travel well. And then once they arrive, you add more of this gas to help them ripen quickly and consistently.

16:54And that's when they go into these ripening rooms. Every single piece of this banana room is designed for optimal banana ripening. The room itself sort of looks like a giant walk-in cooler with stacks and stacks of bananas in boxes. And it's chilly, around 70 degrees, but it feels colder. It's very windy. It's like... You're basically in a wind tunnel. And I will say it sounds very windy. It sounds like you are in a windy place. Yeah, that wind, though, is important. The boxes are actually designed to allow for the gas to flow in them and between the bananas. Tracy, I do have a confession, and I should have told you earlier, I'm actually allergic to bananas.

17:31Allergic to the skin? I'm allergic to eating them, to the fruit, yeah. Okay. I don't know if I've ever heard anyone be allergic before to bananas themselves, but I have heard people being allergic to the skin. And in some sense, it's the worst reporter that they could have sent along to do this story. Sam's like throwing us under the bus. This is the first I'm hearing about banana allergy. We would have not sent you in if we thought you could be harmed, Sam. Right, sure, sure. This is unfair. I am okay. Thank you for asking. But back to why I was risking life and limb in the first place. Tracy did tell me that bananas aren't the only produce that needs a whole production ecosystem.

18:09You know, mangoes, tomatoes, apples, pears, plums, avocados, and kiwis all have their own special ripening facilities near their top ports. Okay. So bananas come in through Wilmington in part because at this point, all the banana infrastructure is now clustered around Wilmington. Sam, thank you so much for, I guess this heroic reporting. We didn't know, but thank you. Yeah, sure thing, Kenny. Time to peel out. No, he did not do that. Get out of here. Go. Get out of here. Oh, Amanda. Port fact. Oh, it's so loud. Okay, but I'm recovering. All right, yes. Bring me the port fact. It's a shame you now dread them because of the sound effects, but whatever.

18:54They're just a little triggering, but I'll recover. It's fine. Tell me. So while Sam was at the old banana ripening place, he talked to a guy named Lou who has been there for ages and said that in the olden days, there was a risk of banana shipments also coming with critters. I was calling on a pallet of bananas and I heard like a scratching noise. And there goes a scorpion crawled right into the banana box. We had to take the whole pallet apart. We finally found it, and we kept it for a pet for a while, and then it died in the jar. Scorpion. Scorpion. Yeah, of course. You love it? Hashtag port fact?

19:37I mean, do I love it? Will it keep me awake tonight? Yes. Both.

19:45Okay, after the break, a final port mystery about a surprisingly big importer, And also, we'll talk about cookies and ice cream and candy. I mean, come on.

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21:30And we're back. So for our final segment, we're going to name a bunch of companies for a reason that will become clear in a second. One of them is Amazon, which is among NPR's financial supporters and pays to distribute some of our content. And with that out of the way, our final port question. It stems from this thing that we kept seeing, like a list that we kept seeing. Yes, there was a list of the biggest importers to the eastern seaboard. And actually, this was calculated using Import Genius's data. Shout out Import Genius again. So the biggest importer on this list was Walmart, which makes sense.

22:08They are the biggest retailer in the country. Also up there in the rankings was Amazon. Again, giant company. Got it. Heineken is also in the top 20. They ship a lot of beer from Europe, so sure, bring it in through the eastern seaboard. But admittedly, we were pretty surprised to see that number four on the list was... Roll the campy ad. Bob's Discount Furniture. It's Bob's Discount Furniture. It was Bob's Discount Furniture. Bob's Discount Furniture. What? You're putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable. It's Bob's discount furniture. All right. However you say it, I think our final big ports question kind of boiled down to like, really?

22:51Bob's? Bob's is a big company. I mean, Bob's is a$2 billion business. That is Bill McLaughlin's estimate. He's the editor-in-chief of the furniture trade publication Furniture Today. I'm kind of a furniture geek. Why do you love furniture so much? How do you not love furniture? I mean, does anybody not have furniture in their house? Think about it. Yeah. Think about it. And I thought about it. It's true. We all have furniture. Okay. But yes. So quiet while you're thinking. Bob's is much bigger than I knew. They are massive. 186 stores, mostly on the East Coast. I also did not know this. These are stores that Bill says also famously serve snacks.

23:31Popcorn and cookies. Not a lot of folks have done that before. So you can have a little snack while you shop. I mean, I love that. Well, the smartest thing about it is most parents shop with their kids. Right. And, you know, if somebody's tugging on your shirt, going, I want to go, I want to go. Eat this cookie, kid. Eat these cookies, have some popcorn. Isn't this fun? I did reach out to Bob's for this story and they wanted to clarify that the food offerings are actually cookies, candy, and ice cream. So no popcorn. But look, the bottom line is that Bob's is bigger and snackier than I knew and that's on me.

24:03But like, look, here's what really caught our attention as like a port insight. So IKEA, for example, they are a massive East Coast importer, the second biggest one. And that makes sense. IKEA is shipping from Europe. And so importing to the East Coast makes sense. But Bob's, they are making discount furniture, which is largely made in Asia, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Bill says. Our question then is, is it not impractical to have to ship that stuff all the way to the East Coast? Like, why not just land it in California? and I will admit, did not expect this answer from Bill. Furniture is kind of like a cold sore, right?

24:45You don't want to touch it a lot. So every time you move a piece of furniture, you run risks. You run the risk of it breaking. You add an expense because in order to move it, that means somebody is moving a container, right? And every time you touch it, it costs you more money. Yeah, the reality is it is just so much cheaper to keep things moving on a ship because a ship is a bulk method of transportation. Cargo is measured in what the industry calls TEUs, or 20-foot equivalent units, which is half of one of those big old metal containers that you're probably picturing. A cargo ship can carry 24 ,000 TEUs.