Let them eat frozen.

So, CBC HV-GB interviewed an official from INAC who manages the food by mail program this morning.
It’s not his fault he said, [he did say that perhaps some aspects of the program need a re look. I seem to have heard that before].

INAC gives the money to Canada Post who administers and monitors the program.
As the spokesperson from Canada Post said yesterday, it’s not their fault; they just administer and monitor the program for INAC, as INAC gives them the money they have to answer for it.
An official from the Airline that takes the money from Canada Post who takes the money from INAC said it’s not his fault.

So the field narrows, who do we have left?

Starting from the bottom of the food chain we have the luckless consumer. Then we have the retailer. Then the wholesaler in HV-GB. Then the ground shipper. Then the wholesaler in Quebec some place. Then the shipper who gets the produce to the wholesaler in Quebec some place. The the transshipment people near the people who grow the produce. Then the people who grow the produce.
Hold on a bit, maybe it’s those illegal aliens that work in the fields of the people who grow the produce. Then that would not work if the produce came from the country that the illegal aliens came from in the first place.

Getting back to reality for a while; some people in jurisdictions outside Northern Labrador are hinting that maybe the retailers here should order larger volumes of the produce, that way there is less chance of them running out.

From a consumer point of view there would be have to be changes in the present shipping arrangements for that to work.

Firstly the produce is already in a precarious state on arrival in Goose Bay.

Then we only have produce shipped in one day a week, some times on different days for different retailers, some times in dribs and drabs, some times all on one plane, so that would have to be addressed.

I don’t think that the produce would be in great shape 6 days after it arrived in Nain.
Added to that is the fact that the produce is only delivered one day a week into HV-GB. Maybe on different days for different wholesaler, so that adds to the logistics.

There is already a lot of wastage, some times due to unsuitable produce on arrival in Nain, sometimes due to it being on the shelf 3 to 4 days. So 6 to 7 days on the shelf would not work from the consumer point of view.

I also think that the 48 hour time frame the airline has to get it to the retailer has to be re visited. Some times it can extend to 72 hours I am told, depending on things like weather, legitimate mechanical issues with planes.

The INAC official mentioned that the 48 hour time is universal all over the north.
One thing comes to mind on that, I think in all other northern jurisdictions, the produce is flown in to the distribution points. In our case it is trucked in to HV-GB. I’m not sure what the average trucking time is, but it sure would be an issue.

Maybe the official at INAC has the ultimate answer. Some time back I was talking to this official, on the phone, on the very same problems that are at issue now.
The official became a bit frustrated at my insistence at trying to get answers, he suggested that perhaps “we should revert to just frozen vegetables, they are just as nutritious as fresh”.

I kid you not; the same official repeated those words at a later date to a retailer who was trying to get similar answers.

With an attitude like that in Ottawa, the obvious parochial self serving attitudes in HV-GB and at Canada Post, the disinterest the politicians are displaying, the same disinterest the vast majority of local consumers are displaying, perhaps it would be better to just scrap the program, along with the provincial program in the winter.

The consumer would pay more but the tax payers would save money.

There would be less freight to bring in, the air carriers would not have to worry about all that hassle, the retailers would have less things to worry about, Canada Post would not have to send some one up to the airport for an hour each week, the truckers would have less freight to worry about, same with the wholesalers.

Add to that the increase in medical care having to be administered to the people who have increased health issues due to the inability for most to acquire a healthy diet.

Except for the luckless consumer a great deal all around. Or would it be??????