Food and drink shortages the U.S. is facing in 2022
As buyer demand competes with ongoing global supply chain woes, here are the food and drink shortages reported to USA Today so far in 2022.
Erin Udell, Fort Collins Coloradoan
PORTSMOUTH — An air cargo facility at the Portsmouth International Airport at Pease is part of a broader vision Paul Brean, executive director of the Pease Development Authority, sees for the region.
That view encompasses Portsmouth Harbor and the roles it, Pease International Tradeport, and the airport could play, for example, in the future development of wind farms in the Gulf of Maine.
It’s an “intermodal” view, according to Brean, involving a variety of ways to transport goods and products.
“We look at it as intermodal and we look at rail, we look at nautical and we look at surface highways,” Brean said.
“Potentially,” he added, “we could see some of the largest domestic investment in offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Maine. If you look at Portsmouth and the Piscataqua River, there could be an incredible infrastructure that supports not only the construction, but the ongoing maintenance of that type of facility.”
NH airports and Port Authority a powerful combination
The Pease Development Authority could help shape intermodal development in the region since it has broad oversight over airports (both Portsmouth and Rochester), commercial development at the Pease Tradeport, and various ports along the coast, including the largest, the New Hampshire Port Authority, on the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth.
Previous story: Pease airport cargo facility plan moves forward
Policymakers in Concord see the potential, too. The New Hampshire Legislature is looking at how to both regulate and take economic advantage of any wind farm development in the gulf.
Two offshore wind bills — both offered by state Sen. David Watters, D-Dover — passed a Senate committee in February with bipartisan support. The bills, in part, protect and promote New Hampshire employment and economic development related to the offshore wind industry.
“New Hampshire is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the offshore wind industry, both as an economic driver and as a major source of clean energy. Developing offshore wind on the Atlantic coast could lead to $20 (billion) to $30 billion of investment and 25,000 new jobs in pre-development construction and maintenance in the Gulf of Maine,” Watters said.
First for Seacoast: Food truck court, taproom proposed for old Durham Town Hall lot
A preview to this has already played out at the tradeport. It served as a staging ground for the massive blades that were trucked to the wind farm in Antrim, New Hampshire, which opened in 2020 with nine turbines.
“It was really a great precursor of what, when we combine efforts, we have as far as intermodal capability,” Brean said.
Commercial airline growth still a goal
The idea of getting materials and products from one place to another, as it applies to an air cargo facility, fits the Portsmouth International Airport and tradeport well, according to Brean.
He doesn’t see developing an air cargo hub as overshadowing current efforts to maintain and possibly expand its offerings of commercial passenger travel at Portsmouth’s airport, where Allegiant Air is the only current airline.
Portsmouth International Airport (PSM): What’s new with Portsmouth airport at Pease and where is Allegiant flying in 2022?
“In a perfect world, it’s a really nice blend,” Brean said, citing a mix of passenger, corporate, general aviation, and air cargo flights alongside the activity of the 157th Air Refueling Wing of the New Hampshire Air National Guard.
As far as commercial air traffic is concerned, according to Brean, growth might be hemmed in by other, larger airports in Boston, Portland, Maine, and Manchester.
Currently, depending on the season, Allegiant Airlines provides flights to destinations in Florida and Nashville, Tennessee. Brean would like to see future flights — from Allegiant or another airline — that connect to a major passenger hub.
“Our intent is to continue to grow our domestic, ultra-low-cost leisure market and hopefully provide the Seacoast community with easier access to a major metropolitan area. If we can blend that with the right type of e-commerce air cargo entity, we will be very well positioned,” Brean said.
Your guide to navigating inflation: Calculate, invest and profit amid rising prices
Air cargo plans at Pease intend to meet ‘massive demand’
The PDA board of directors in January granted options to a development team that intends to develop two sites at the airport into air cargo facilities.
The team is made up of Portsmouth-based developer Kane Company and Procon, a construction services company based in Hooksett. The two properties under consideration are the massive former Air Force hangar (called Hangar 227) at the end of Aviation Avenue and the so-called North Apron (or North 40, because it encompasses about 40 acres) located off Arboretum Drive at the northern end of the airfield.
The proposal for Hangar 227, which would be demolished, is to start with a 185,000-square-foot air cargo/distribution building on the site with a phase two buildout to a total of 400,000 square feet.
For the North Apron, the Procon/Kane proposal suggests a first phase of a 110,000-square-foot air cargo/distribution facility with a phase two build out to a total of 324,000 square feet.
One other entity has been given a right of entry permit to study the feasibility of an air cargo facility at the North Apron. That was given to Eric Robinson, CEO of East West Aeronautical, a cargo logistics and forwarding company at the tradeport with an office at 1 New Hampshire Ave.
In Portsmouth: Burned-out State Street Saloon, nearby sites listed for $6.8M with big development planned
While nothing detailed has been provided yet to the board, Robinson wants to build what is being called the “ACX Project” on the land abutting the North Apron.
The ACX (Air Cargo and Aviation Complex) Project, according Robinson, encompasses 465,000 square feet of construction to include an air cargo center (250,000 square feet), hangar/maintenance for large and small aircraft (150,000 square feet), and research/development center with a museum devoted to the U.S. Air Force and Navy (65,000 square feet).
In granting Procon/Kane its options, the Pease directors included the proviso that the first task for the team is to study the consequences that traffic might have on Portsmouth, Newington and Greenland. There were also concerns expressed about increased air traffic: the frequency of the flights, the timing of the flights, and the noise pollution.
The developers are not disclosing with whom they are in discussion as an air cargo client (or clients), citing non-disclosure agreements. Brean, in a memo to the PDA board, said the developers “indicated there is significant interest in these projects from a large number of end users, the names of which are not currently subject to public disclosure, but would likely be familiar to all board members.”
Todd Selig, the town administrator in Durham, said the developers told him in a meeting that Amazon “was one of many companies who they would have an interest in attracting to the site. Again, at this juncture they indicate no single company has been identified as the end user.”
Selig met with developers, in part, to get an idea of the frequency of air cargo flights and the noise they might generate. Concerns about noise have prompted numerous letters to the editor and opinion pieces from local residents to Seacoastonline about the potential impact on quality of life.
Hampton Beach Lupe’s 55 Cantina: Change of owners, but not the menu
Selig noted that he was told likely the planes would be rated as Stage 4 or better. The FAA regulates plane noise through certain standards, with Stage 1 being the loudest and Stage 5 being the most quiet. He also noted that developers told him most cargo aircraft would land/take-off during the day,
Selig, in observations he provided via his weekly emailed newsletter, said “carriers would use the quieter Stage 4 aircraft or better, they would target daytime use, nighttime use would be quite small, and Amazon, while a user any such project would target, was not the sole identified end user as conversations with many potential users were in process.”
Where old Goss property in Durham may fit in
Durham could possibly have a stake in the region’s intermodal network.
The same developer — R.J. Kelly Co., of Burlington, Massachusetts — which purchased the former Goss International property off Route 155 in Durham near Route 4 is working on behalf of Amazon to redevelop a 60-acre property currently owned and used by security manufacturer Analogic in Peabody, Massachusetts. The plans call for a 183,000-square-foot warehouse space to provide “last-mile” delivery service to Amazon customers.
Kelly paid $21 million in October to purchase the Durham property at 151 Technology Drive — 500,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space, with high-ceiling warehouse space and total land area in excess of 170 acres that would allow for further expansion.
Without naming names, Brandon Kelly, the Kelly CEO, said in an interview: “We’re very hopeful and extremely confident that this building is going to bring a lot of jobs to the area. My guess is that it’ll end up being a single tenant building, but I could be wrong. It could be a multitude of tenants.”
$700 increase?: ‘It’s a hardship on all of us’: Renters weigh if they should stay or go
Supply chain needs ‘secondary hubs’
According to Brean, the supply chain, as it relates to moving air cargo, is depending more and more on what are called “secondary gateways” or “secondary airports” or “secondary hubs” to avoid the congestion in the major, big city hubs.
Trade industry newsletters – the Journal of Commerce (JOC), for instance – point to a growing number of air cargo carriers shifting from choked city-based airports to regionally-based airports.
“These alternate airports are very efficient because they do not face the same challenges as traditional gateways, and the volumes are manageable,” Shawn Richard, vice president of air freight at SEKO Logistics, said in a Journal of Commerce posting. “We believe that although the major gateways will always maintain the larger share of volumes, there will be a long-term shift towards utilizing the secondary all-cargo hubs as the efficiencies cannot be ignored.”
Looking towards Maine: Supply chain challenges can’t hold back China’s love for US lobsters
Brean believes the airport is perfectly positioned to take advantage of that secondary hub need.
“A secondary airport is very attractive because you have a much more efficient process. The cargo isn’t as priority sensitive,” he said. “The e-commerce warehouses that they’re building are basically supporting an inventory supply chain that may be restocking to support future demand.”
According to the Journal of Commerce, shippers are also concerned about whether their freight will be able to leave the big city airport terminal, another factor that Brean plays in Portsmouth’s favor.
By coming to a secondary hub, said Brean, “they stay out of congested major airports, which not only is a cost savings and but an environmental positive story with less of a carbon footprint because they’re not in the flight pattern as long, they’re not taxiing as far, they’re not doing gate holds. But equally important to their bottom number is the goods are not being held up in customs facilities at large airports. At major hub airports there’s days of backlog to clear customs.”
In late January, the state’s two U.S. senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, visited Portsmouth to tout the $1.6 million investment by the federal government to expand the Piscataqua River shipping channel and turnaround basin in order to accommodate larger ships at the New Hampshire Port Authority.
‘Bigger ships, faster delivery’: NH Port Authority gets $1.6M for the basin. Why it matters
“Portsmouth Harbor and the Piscataqua River help facilitate the flow of goods from and through New Hampshire — which is critical to supply chains and our state’s economic prosperity,” Hassan said.
The need for logistics space is pushing companies out of the Boston metropolitan area, according to John Kane, a principal at the Kane Co. “Regionally, we know there is a bubble of demand and we want to pull that up here,” Kane said, noting the “Amazon effect” on home delivery.
“Right now we’ve identified 23 companies that are actively looking for logistics locations in greater New England,” Kane said during the Procon/Kane presentation to Pease directors in January.
As for Pease, according to Kane, “geographically, it just works.”
“There are some of the users we’re talking to that want to be on the runway, and they have a demand for that use, and others that don’t,” he said. “But the fact is, there’s massive demand. But you’ve got to build it. We can’t sit around and say we have an approved plan; you have to go into ground, you have to build it.”
“We are competing regionally,” Kane added. “Once those 23 companies — or whatever the number is — get absorbed, there are not another 23 behind it.”
