Week in Review: From Stolen Condiments to Living Medicines (& Everything APIs Touch in Between)

Someone in Ontario is throwing the world’s most illegal tailgate party using $35,000 worth of stolen salsa—and that’s just the appetizer for this week’s supply chain update. We’re tracking down Canada’s cargo thieves who have migrated from whiskey to nacho supplies, watching Hormel abandon bacon in Georgia for a quarter-billion-dollar transformation, and discovering how Merck turned a patent cliff into a speed bump by making its $30 billion cancer drug injectable in under two minutes. Plus: APIs secretly run your entire supply chain while processing 50 billion calls daily, and shipping living CAR-T cells requires more babysitting than a newborn—because one degree of warmth turns your six-figure treatment into very expensive soup. Buckle up!

Turns Out Truckers Need to Watch Their Goods North of the Border, Too

Last week’s news on Mexico’s cargo theft surge grabbed headlines, but up north in Ontario, they’re quickly learning that cargo theft is not only a south-of-the-border phenomenon.  

Canadian Cargo Theft Chronicles

Spring brought the disappearance of 1,000 boxes of whiskey worth $500,000 from a Windsor transport truck. Summer saw 530 boxes of boneless beef chuck roast valued at $222,000 vanish from a parked trailer, leaving barbecue enthusiasts everywhere heartbroken. But September 27 at 8:30 p.m. marked peak absurdity when thieves nabbed a 16-meter trailer containing $35,000 worth of salsa and dip from a Tecumseh lot—and then had the audacity to return the truck later that night.

The Salsa Bandits’ Elaborate Dance

These weren’t your average smash-and-grab amateurs. Within an hour of the salsa heist, the thieves snatched a second transport truck nearby, towing what police suspect was the spicy cargo. The big rig eventually surfaced two days later in Ajax, Ontario, mysteriously salsa-free. Police believe a Jeep Rubicon lurking near both theft scenes might hold the key to solving this condiment conspiracy. But for now, all we know is that somewhere out there, someone’s hosting the most well-stocked tailgate party Ontario has ever seen.

Hormel’s Bacon Breakup: Why a Georgia Plant Got the Chop

Hormel Foods just pulled the plug on bacon production at its Tucker, Georgia, facility, and it’s natural to wonder why a company would walk away from America’s favorite breakfast meat. The answer? The company decided the aging bacon lines at the plant weren’t worth the massive investment required to bring them up to speed with their grand plans. Sometimes old equipment needs more than a Band-Aid fix.

The $250 Million Makeover  

Hormel’s Transform and Modernize initiative is moving faster than expected. Launched at the end of fiscal 2023 with a three-year, $250 million target, the company has already executed 90 projects in Q3 alone—from shutting down the Georgia bacon plant to opening a new Memphis distribution center. CFO Jacinth Smiley expects to capture $100 million to $150 million in benefits when the fiscal year closes this October, putting Hormel nearly halfway to its goal in year one. The secret? It’s attacking everything at once: standardizing operations through its new Hormel Production System, standing up a data analytics office, and rethinking the entire supply chain.

The Shuffle at the Top

All this operational shuffling needs leadership, which explains why Hormel’s supply chain command keeps changing hands faster than a hot potato. Steve Lykken earned his stripes as group VP of supply chain in 2024, and was gone by April. Kevin Myers then stepped into those still-warm shoes as interim group VP.

One Drug Makes Half of Merck’s Money: Now What?

Merck’s flagship drug Keytruda hauled in $29.5 billion last year, which sounds great in theory. But there’s a catch: nearly half of Merck’s entire revenue is riding on this one drug. Sales will hit $32.7 billion in 2026, fall off a cliff when the patent expires, and will plummet to around $7 billion by 2032. So, Merck decided to hedge by launching Keytruda Qlex: a subcutaneous formulation that cuts administration time from 30 minutes to one or two.

Do the Math With Both Drugs & the Panic Fades

Looking at the projected numbers reveals why Merck isn’t panicking. Yes, Keytruda alone could tumble from its expected $32.7 billion peak as biosimilars eat away at market share. But here’s what analysts might be missing: Qlex is projected to ramp up aggressively, potentially jumping from $896 million in 2026 to $7.1 billion by 2032. If these projections hold, Merck could be looking at a combined $14.3 billion in 2032, aka double what Keytruda alone would bring.

Nobody Wants to Sit Through a 30-Minute Infusion

Roughly 30-40% of patients will ditch IV for subcutaneous delivery, which might not sound revolutionary until you realize why the rest likely won’t: they’re already hooked up to get another IV drug administered anyway. But for those who can switch, it’s a no-brainer. Who wants to sit for half an hour when you could be done in under two minutes? In switching trials, patients consistently chose Qlex when given both options. Oncology centers are already scrambling to reconfigure their spaces, anticipating the shift. Payers are on board, too, because paying for 30 minutes of chair time makes zero sense when a much shorter option exists. Merck kept Qlex at $12,000 per cycle to match the original, and about a quarter of payers already lean toward it.

APIs: The Invisible Workforce Running Your Supply Chain

Those OTIF targets you’re trying to hit? There’s a reason why you’re doing it more often than not. Right now, 50 billion API calls are firing across global supply chains a day, connecting systems that otherwise couldn’t talk to each other. Everyone’s chasing AI, but these invisible workers have been doing the real work for some time.

The 72-Hour Blackout That No Longer Exists

Here’s what used to happen: a container left Shanghai and vanished into thin air for 72 hours until it pinged at the next checkpoint. Supply chain managers spent their days reacting to problems they discovered too late to fix. APIs changed that completely. Your smartphone now tracks shipments across 11,000 miles in real time because APIs connect shipping companies, warehouses, and retailers in a continuous conversation. When retailers lose $1.1 trillion annually to bad inventory decisions, APIs step in to balance 156 variables at once—sales patterns, weather forecasts, local events—and adjust stock before problems surface.  

How a Small Shop Ships Like a Giant

The real story is what happened to everyone else. APIs used to require massive IT budgets that only corporations could afford, but the API-as-a-service market—which will climb to $13.2 billion by 2033—tells a different story. A craftsperson in Thailand can now access the same shipping networks, inventory systems, and customs tools that power major retailers. Currency conversion, tax calculations, and compliance checks are all handled automatically through APIs that cost less than a phone bill. Cross-border commerce stopped being complicated—and started being normal.

Keeping CAR-T Therapies Cool: The $21 Billion Race to Deliver Living Medicine

Personalized medicine and life sciences sound simple until you realize you’re shipping living cells that can’t survive a UPS delay. The Global Cell and Gene Therapy Third-Party Logistics Market hit $8.66 billion in 2024—and could surge to $20.98 billion by 2033 at a 10.33% CAGR because someone needs to get these temperature-critical treatments from lab to patient without turning them into expensive genetic soup. 

Cold Hard Cash (& Even Colder Storage)

CAR-T therapies demand ultra-low temperature freezers, cryogenic shippers, and real-time tracking. Traditional logistics companies can’t cut it when a single degree of temperature variation ruins a six-figure treatment tailored specifically to your DNA. 3PL providers now deploy AI-driven route optimization, IoT monitoring, and blockchain verification to keep a watchful eye on these therapies—from the manufacturing center to the hospital bed. The U.S., Germany, China, and Saudi Arabia lead demand, each pouring billions into biotech infrastructure that requires door-to-door delivery precision.

Personalized Medicine Meets Personalized Panic

Temperature-sensitive biologics hate surprises. Packaging must prevent contamination, degradation, and physical damage while complying with customs regulations spanning multiple countries. Oncology, neurology, and cardiovascular treatments drive the overwhelming majority of therapeutic demand, and push biopharmaceutical companies and contract manufacturers to partner with logistics specialists who understand that late or damaged delivery means someone doesn’t get their potentially lifesaving treatment.

When Everything Can Go Wrong, You Need to See It Coming

Salsa vanishes in Ontario. Bacon production gets axed. A $30 billion drug faces a patent cliff. Living medicines turn to soup if they get warm. The supply chain throws curveballs daily, and the companies thriving are the ones with real-time shipment visibility. You can’t fix what you can’t see, and in this business, not seeing costs millions.

Arm yourself with innovation: let Tive lead the way in transforming your supply chain operations. Embrace the future of logistics—get started with Tive today.