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

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Even in our modern world with planes and jets and drones, the vast majority of goods are moved around the planet in cargo ships. Which means our ports are the backbone of our global economy. The longshoremans' strike closed the eastern ports for only three days, but those three days raised a lot of questions.Like - why is a discount furniture store the fourth largest importer on the East Coast? How come so many bananas come through Wilmington, Delaware? Why do we need live frogs delivered into the US six times a month? And... how do we even keep track of all of these imports? On today's episode, we get into #PortFacts!This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Amanda Aronczyk. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Audrey Quinn, and fact-checked by Dania Suleman. Engineering by Cena Loffredo and Kwesi Lee with an assist from Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

If you enjoy Planet Money, you should try out NPR+. With Planet Money+, you get sponsor-free listening and exclusive bonus episodes from just this show, but you can upgrade to the NPR Plus bundle and access perks from over 20 of NPR's most popular podcasts and more. Give a little, get a lot in return. Visit plus.npr.org. 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. Look at you, COVID ports mess. But yes, you may recall the longshoremen on the Eastern seaboard walked off the job. Those 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. I 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.

Steven Flynn is a professor of political science at Northeastern University, a former Coast Guard officer, and has become a ports obsessive. I've visited about every port in the world, a major port in the world. Something like 80% of the world's stuff by volume moves by ship. In and out of ports, a constant water ballet of commerce to keep food and fuel and life moving.

Oh, 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, and look, when that port strike ended or was suspended, it was about three days in and, you know, I found a place to store my, my panic purchase dog food and Amanda, I decided I am not going to take ports for granted. Like, 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. Like, for example, for example, 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, did you know that luxury goods often ship in refrigerated containers? So what are we talking about? What's a luxury good? 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. Okay, 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 just 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 does it, I assume it costs more to have it done to ship 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.

I love it. What is port? You want more port? Port facts. I would like another port fact, please. Well... Hello, and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Kenny Malone. And I'm Amanda Oranjic.

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? You know I am. Yes, I am. We're going to have a little sound for every pork fact we have. It's going to sound like this. Insert here. Vroom.

Hey-oh. That's the sound of commerce, baby. Wow, commerce is loud. Of course. This message comes from Grammarly. The work week can be fast-paced, and it's hard to focus on getting everything done. Let Grammarly be your AI writing partner.

It can help you write and quickly edit with suggestions wherever you write. 93% of professionals report that Grammarly helps them get more work done. Get more done with Grammarly. Download Grammarly for free at Grammarly.com slash podcast. That's Grammarly.com slash podcast. That's grammarly.com slash podcast. As election day approaches, NPR's Consider This podcast is zooming in on six states that could determine who wins the White House. Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. We'll ask voters in these swing states what matters to them and which way they want the country to go.

Follow along with new episodes this week on the Consider This Podcast from NPR. Okay, let's make a distinction right now because I can feel the anticipation. Yes? It's building. Uh-huh. We're going to have some… Hashtag port facts sprinkled through this episode. They 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 am excited by your excitement, Kenny.

And you are excited. Okay, port facts. That's gonna 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? And 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. The product description is the general description on the shipping manifest of what's in that shipment. Okay, 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 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, do you know? I don't know, it might be other stuff too.

Some of these fields are not totally clear. But 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. Right 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. Yeah. delivered by mail every day from some office in Northern Virginia. Yeah, 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. So 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 imagined 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. Like 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. The 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.

No. You don't like that hashtag port fact. I don't like, I don't like frogs legs. Like I- 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 coming in monthly. Like this is what's happening. This is just what's happening.

Unbelievable. It is a lot of bullfrogs. Okay. 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 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. Sam 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 stocks 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 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.

They'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 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. But 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're 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. What 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. And please, Sam, tell me that you got access to a banana ripening room.

I think I need to know everything about banana ripening. So Kenny, I did get to visit 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 are looking at bananas that are placed three tiers high. Air flow is going around them. There is ethylene gas in the room as we speak.

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. And 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... We'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. Allergic to the skin? I'm allergic to eating them, to the, to the, 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. Seems 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. This is unfair. I am OK. 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. You 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, Amanda. Port fact. Oh, it's so loud. Okay, but I'm recovering. All right, yes.

Bring me the port fact. It is a shame you now dread them. It's a shame you now dread them because of the sound effects, but whatever. They're just a little triggering, but I'll recover, it's fine. Tell me. All right, well, 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 crawling 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, 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. I mean, do I love it? Will it keep me awake tonight? Yes. Both.

I mean, do I love it? Will it keep me awake tonight? Yes. Both. Okay, 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. Hey, it's Mike and Ian. We're the hosts of How to Do Everything from the team at Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Every week we take your questions and find someone much smarter than us to answer them. Questions like, how do I safely jump out of a moving vehicle? How do I dangerously jump out of a moving vehicle? We can't help you, but we will find someone who can.

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Truth, independence, fairness, transparency, respect, excellence. This is NPR. And 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. 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 ImportGenius's data. Shout out ImportGenius again. So the biggest importer on this list was Walmart, which makes sense. They 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 and... Bob's Discount Furniture! Uh, it's Bob's Discount Furniture. It was Bob's Discount Furniture! Bob's Discount F 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? Bob's? Bob's is a big company. I mean, Bob's is a two billion dollar 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? 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. Popcorn 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. But 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 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 sword, right? You don't want to touch it a lot. Okay. 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. That is so many giant metal cargo containers, all at once, moving in bulk. I think the average person, you think,

oh, wow, they're bringing in a big container. Yeah. And you think of it in terms of one, right? Well, if I was shipping one container from China to New York, the shortest way is to ship it to California and then take it and move it, drive it, right? That might be true if you do it one time.

But if you're the fourth largest importer on the East Coast, like Bob's, we are talking so many cargo containers worth of stuff. It's just a different scale. And keeping all those containers on a ship for as long as possible just makes sense. And, you know, I mean, I think this actually really gets at what I have come to appreciate maybe most

from my short-lived port strike port shutdown panic, which is that when I thought about how the world's economies have become globalized I I guess I was really picturing like zooming jets and bustling airports But but it is all about moving things cheaply on ships to and from the ports. And for better and worse, that is what turned the entire planet into one giant marketplace where customers and importers and manufacturers can scour the globe for a place that makes the cheapest widget.

Which, Amanda, brings us to our final......hashtag port fact. Ah, I was ready for that sound that time. Okay, lay it on me. All right, so this one comes from the professor that I first called when I was stockpiling dog food and freaking out about ports or whatever. That is Professor Stephen Flynn. And Steve had this example that I think

is kind of globalization in a nutshell. There are places in China where they stack the clothes in the container exactly how they're going to come out of the container onto the retail shelf. As in, you know, you like send this place a carefully put together list. You know, don't just load these shirts on the container willy-nilly. I want them loaded in the exact order that they're going to go onto our shelves or our rack or whatever. Yeah, I want these dresses of this size being put in these colors. And that is sorted through at a very low labor cost overseas.

Yeah, it is just that much cheaper to have someone in another country spend the time organizing the things instead of having American workers do it here. It's just that much cheaper to have someone in another country spend the time organizing the things instead of having American workers do it here. Globalization in a nutshell. This episode was produced by Sam Yellow Horse Kessler, it was edited by Audrey Quinn, and fact-checked by Danya Suleyman. Engineering by Sina LaFredo and Kwesi Lee, with an assist from Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Special thanks this week to Will Chase for tracking down so many banana facts. Who knew there were this many banana facts? So many facts in a row of bananas. I mean, I could have guessed there's a hashtag banana facts. Oh, I think you just came up with our next episode. I'm Kenny Malone. And I'm Amanda Aronchik.

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