Week in Review: Grand Theft Avocado Meets Nuclear Necklaces

The supply chain continues putting on a show, and Act 1 starts with a look at newly-released 2024 cargo theft data from CargoNet—as thieves keep smashing records and refining their palates, from California to Texas. At the same time, drug prices are rocketing past rational thought, with some treatments now priced like mortgages. Food giants are racing to paint themselves green while sweating through contamination scandals, and corporate sustainability teams are learning hard truths. (Those “clean” lab diamonds? More like coal-powered.)

Meanwhile, pharma is playing chicken with toxic “forever chemicals,” caught between safety regulations and the awkward fact that these poisons help keep our medicine safe. Ladies and gentlemen, we present you a front-row ticket to an industry in which absurdity meets innovation. Read on

The Great Heist of 2024: Cargo Theft Hits the Gas (& Everything Else)

Remember when stealing a truck meant nabbing some TVs or sneakers? Well, 2024 rewrote the playbook with a record 3,625 cargo thefts across the U.S. and Canada—jumping 27% from 2023. Criminals got pickier, smarter, and way more profitable, with the average heist now worth $202,364 (up from $187,895 in 2023). According to the latest CargoNet data, here’s how modern-day bandits turned cargo theft into a record-breaking business.

Engine Oil to Avocados: The Weirdest Shopping List Ever

Gone are the days when thieves stuck to basics. While 2023’s hot items were engine fluids and energy drinks, 2024’s criminals developed expensive tastes. They snatched everything from copper and high-end servers to cryptocurrency mining gear. And apparently, someone’s planning one health-conscious heist—with protein powder, vitamins, and even avocados making the most-wanted list. 

Coast-to-Coast Chaos: California Dreams & Texas Schemes

The Wild West got even wilder in 2024, with California and Texas serving as cargo theft hot spots. California saw thefts rocket up 33%, but Texas said, “Hold my beer,” featuring a 39% surge. Specifically, Dallas County saw a 78% spike in thefts, while Los Angeles County saw its numbers jump 50%. Each quarter of 2024 broke previous records, though the crime spree showed signs of cooling by Q4, with only an 11.81% increase. From trailer burglaries to elaborate deception schemes, criminal enterprises are getting craftier by the day—and 2025 might need a bigger record book.

Big Pharma’s Price Hike Party: Your Supply Chain’s Latest Headache

We’re barely a month into the new year. Nevertheless, pharmaceutical giants have already announced their own version of a ball drop—jacking up prices on more than 800 brand-name drugs.

A Game of Musical (Price) Chairs—From Factory to Pharmacy

Leadiant Pharmaceuticals took the crown for boldest moves, pumping Matulane to $149 per pill (15% increase) and jacking up the price of Cystaran eye drops to a whopping $2,597 (20% increase). Even popular diabetes medications joined the party: Eli Lilly’s Zepbound now demands $1,086 monthly, up from $1,059. The median price hike sits at 4%, slightly gentler than last year’s 4.5%, but tell that to your procurement team’s blood pressure.

The Supply Chain Shuffle: When “Rare” = “Really Expensive”

Drugmakers have gotten craftier since the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act put the squeeze on Medicare price hikes. Their new strategy? Launch fresh products at sky-high prices, and zero in on rare disease treatments where limited competition lets them name their price. TD Cowen’s latest survey of healthcare heavyweights (managing $179 billion in 2024 drug spending) predicts more increases coming down the pipeline.

Clean, Green & Not So Mean: Food Manufacturing’s Dramatic Makeover for 2025

From McDonald’s contamination scares to the FDA’s crackdown on red dye No. 3, food manufacturers face mounting pressure to get their operations right in 2025. While regulators tighten their grip and supply chain disruptions loom, only the strong and smart companies will get ahead by focusing on a few emerging industry trends.

Mean & Green: The Race to Save Both Planet & Profit

The bar for “eco-friendly” keeps rising higher. For instance, Nestlé dropped $1 billion on sustainable coffee sourcing, while Unilever pledged to slash its greenhouse gas emissions 42% by 2030. Companies now scramble to swap resource-heavy ingredients for lab-grown alternatives, and ditch traditional plastics for compostable packaging. Take Restaurantware—it has rolled out 2,000 PFAS-free plant-fiber products, and saved 120,000 pounds of cardboard through clever shipping tweaks. The message? Adapt or get left behind in the compost bin.

No More Food Fiascos: Safety Gets a Much-Needed Glow-Up

“High-profile contamination cases” at McDonald’s and Boar’s Head sent shockwaves through the industry—and prompted a mad dash toward better monitoring systems. The FDA’s new Food Traceability Final Rule takes effect in January 2026, forcing manufacturers to keep detailed records on everything from cheese to cucumbers. Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs have manufacturers retooling their supply chains—stockpiling overseas ingredients, hunting down domestic alternatives, or spreading their bets across multiple suppliers. Crossing your fingers and hoping nothing goes wrong won’t get you anywhere these days.

Big Companies Won’t Let Messy Data Stop Their Climate Goals

Tracking scope 3 emissions can feel like trying to find the original source of every meme on the internet, but major brands keep pushing forward anyway. According to the EPA, with these indirect emissions making up most of a company’s carbon footprint, companies like LinkedIn, Mejuri, and Kontoor Brands have rolled up their sleeves to tackle the challenge head on.

From Coal-Powered Bling to Clean Green Rings: Supply Chain Tales

Mejuri knows lab-grown diamonds aren’t exactly earth friendly—especially when they come from “little nuclear reactors fired by coal towers.” That’s why the jewelry brand partnered with SCS Global Services to certify net-zero impact diamonds—and launched honest conversations with suppliers about its emissions. Meanwhile, Kontoor Brands discovered a game-changing trick: switching just 50% of their production to open-end spinning could slash scope 3 emissions by 6%. The secret? A high-speed rotor that spins fibers into yarn with less carbon impact than traditional methods.

LinkedIn’s Travel Tab Hits Different: Pay-to-Pollute Program Takes Off

LinkedIn got creative with its $30 million U.S. air travel budget in 2023, implementing a carbon fee that business units must pay when booking flights. Using Tripkicks, employees see the carbon cost of their travel choices right at checkout. “What’s the impact of this trip? How might I change this trip to be less carbon-intensive?” asks Melanie Larkins, LinkedIn’s global director of sustainability. The company also built a sustainability resource hub to help third-party suppliers clean up their act, proving that peer pressure works—even in professional networks.

PFAS Ban Panic: Your Medicine’s Awkward Breakup with Forever Chemicals

Even though European regulators are racing to ban “forever chemicals” like PFAS this year, pharmaceutical companies are sounding the alarm: these toxic substances, lurking in consumer products since the 1950s, are also critical for medical packaging and manufacturing. In other words, are some toxic relationships worth preserving?

When Bad Chemicals Do Good Things

Let’s spill the tea on fluoropolymers—the pharmaceutical industry’s equivalent of a superhero’s shield. These PFAS variants defend everything from laboratory instruments to gaskets, caps, valves, and filters. Most critically, they protect injectable drugs (especially sensitive biologics) from toxic leaching between the medicine and its packaging. But here’s the plot twist: the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) warns of one common PFAS chemical (PFOA) being carcinogenic to humans, and another (PFOS) as possibly carcinogenic.

“Not All PFAS Are Created Evil”: Industry Makes Its Case

Pharmaceutical packagers argue for a more nuanced approach to the ban. They point out that polymeric PFAS (the type most used in pharma) behave differently from their troublemaking monomeric cousins. Companies like Datwyler, which has used fluoropolymer coatings since the mid-1990s, hold out hope for special exemptions. And while Dr. Bram Jongen, Datwyler’s VP of materials and surface technologies, expects regulators to possibly create a pathway to keep using fluoropolymers while restricting problematic fluorosurfactants, it’s a race against time.

Your Supply Chain Doesn’t Have to Be this Wild

While thieves perfect their heists, drug prices soar, sustainability becomes a bigger deal, and forever chemicals refuse to quit, real-time tracking and real-time shipment visibility can mean the difference between your supply chain falling flat on its face—or leading the way. Ready to write a better story?

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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.

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