Jan 23, 2018  -  Automakers will have another shipping option from the United States to New Zealand and Australia when Hoeegh Autoliners begins offering a monthly direct service from the Port of Baltimore in March.  The impetus for the new route is a new contract with a ‘Detroit three’ automaker (General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Fiat Chrysler), Shane Warren, head of the Americas region, told Automotive News.

Jan 23, 2018  - Coinbase just hired former Twitter and Salesforce executive Tina Bhatnagar to improve the company’s customer support.  Bhatnagar has two major tasks: to double the size of the company’s support team in three months, and to expand its phone support into a 24/7 service by the second quarter of 2018. It’s the latest step taken by the crypto unicorn to curtail widespread criticism about its ability to handle customer concerns while scaling.

Jan 20, 2018  -  Tetra Pak has pledged to support the European Commission’s Plastics Strategy, announced this week as part of the EU Action Plan for a Circular Economy.  The carton giant said it will work with industry partners to ensure that by 2030, recycling solutions are in place for all components of beverage cartons so they can be fully recycled across Europe.

Jan 20, 2018  -  “This represents a real revolution in the blueberry industry to us. In a couple of years, those without this technology will be left on the sidelines.”  That was the comment from Cristobal Duke, Managing Director of Collipulli (Chile), on UNITEC Blueberry Vision technology back at the end of 2016.

Jan 18, 2018  -  Our future selves might look back and wonder how we ever handled having just plain old glass in our windows. Curtains or blinds might get the flick in favor of a variety of smart windows that can tint themselves or turn opaque on command, and now a team of German engineers has demonstrated a new design. Dubbed Large-Area Fluidic Windows (LaWin), the system uses iron particles suspended in liquid to block sunlight at different levels and harvest heat energy from the Sun.

Jan 17, 2018  -  Fonterra has launched a new fresh milk product in China in partnership with Hema Fresh, Alibaba’s innovative new retail concept which combines traditional bricks-and-mortar shopping with a digital experience.  The new Daily Fresh milk range is now available in Hema’s 14 stores in Shanghai and Suzhou in 750mL bottles, sourced directly from Fonterra’s farm hub in Hebei province. The product boasts unique product labels to match each day of the week in order to emphasise freshness, with stock being replenished overnight ready for each new day.

Jan 17,  2018 -  Calven Bonney, the prominent Auckland road transport operator has been recognised in the New Year’s Honours list with the award of a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. (MNZM).  The larger than life Bonney’s award recognises his more than 40 years of voluntary service to the trucking industry and his involvement in motorsport.

Bonney has been a National Road Carriers Board Member since 1974 for 44 uninterrupted years and was its President between 1997 and 2000.  Calven also played a key role in the formation of the Road Transport Forum in 1997. The RTF brought together the seven individual trucking organisations which represented 5000 trucking companies to represent the road transport industry in Wellington.He has served on the RTF’s board since its inception and was its chairman from 2000 to 2002.

Calven’s work with the NRC has focussed on the development of the organisation to provide all members, whether they have one truck or a fleet of hundreds, with the support, expertise and scale to run their businesses effectively and successfully.He is well known for providing counsel, advice and a sounding board for all road transport operators and has helped the NRC negotiate the many supplier agreements and discounts for services provided to the organisation’s members.

Through his work with the RTF Calven has worked with both national and local government to ensure the road transport industry has a voice to usher through regulatory changes and to make roads safer and easier to use for trucking.Calven has championed improvements in the overall professionalism of the industry and fostered strong working relationships for the industry with the New Zealand Transport Agency, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Team (CVST), the Ministry of Transport and other local and regional authorities.

Passionate about motorsport, he started out crewing for other drivers, including Denny Hulme and then raced at the speedway in most classes before getting involved in Super GTs, endurance events and Formula 5000.But Calven is perhaps best known for his involvement in the establishment of truck racing in New Zealand, helping to negotiate rights from international promoters to start the sport here and then building his own truck for the first season to make sure the sport got off the ground with as many trucks racing as possible.

As a long time sponsor of the annual Festival of Motorsport, Calven has made sure that millions of dollars of historic cars make it off the ships, through customs and are ready to race.Bonney has also been a keen supporter of the Variety Club and was a regular participant in its events for more than 15 years, raising significant funds for the charity.

On a personal level, after selling his first 3 trucks in 1981, he went on to buy his father and uncle’s business in 1984 at a time when it had three trucks. Today Bonney’s has over 100 trucks on the road, servicing a variety of customers in different industries.National Road Carriers is the largest nationwide organisation representing companies involved in the road transport industry. It has 1700 members, who collectively operate 15,000 trucks throughout New Zealand.

|  A Wright Communications release  ||  January 17, 2018   |||

Jan 17, 2018  -  International shipping firm A.P. Moller-Maersk is partnering with IBM to build a blockchain-based platform that seeks to make global trade more efficient.

Jan 16, 2018  -  Its Monday evening just on 7:00PM with dinner and dishes done and dusted so its now time for a bloke to relax in front of TV.  On goes TVOne, first choice really, being a bit loyal and now its a habit.   However change is in the wind!

Jan 16, 2018  - One of Australasia's biggest blueberry partnerships says it is excited by the potential of new varieties that are set to hit the market in the near future.  BerryCo NZ has secured the New Zealand rights to the genetics from Mountain Blue Orchards (MBO) in Australia, which General Manager Vaughan Judkins says is a world leading Southern Highbush breeding programme, and several new developments are on the horizon for the industry. The MBO supplied Eureka brand, with its jumbo size, which is currently a big a hit with both the health conscious across Australia and the international markets in Asia.