Food distribution restored to U.S. military forces - Foot-and-mouth disease - Brief Article

Translog: Journal of Military Transportation Management, May-June, 2001 by Bram de Jong

Delivery of food to U.S. military forces in Europe is running smoothly, but those of us in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, experienced many anxious moments during a week-long delay in the distribution of containers of food products in late March.

Our success in resolving the issue is due to the cooperative efforts of our many European partners.

Problems for the 598th Transportation Group and the 838th Transportation Battalion began March 21, when Sealand Performance arrived in Rotterdam--the same day several cases of foot-and-mouth disease were discovered in The Netherlands.

Fifty-two out of 60 of the 40-foot containers on the Sealand contained meat and dairy products.

The food containers were immediately put into embargo status for 72 hours by Dutch customs. Meanwhile, Germany closed its borders to certain food imports as a precaution.

We were halted on two counts.

Eight containers, with such food products as juices, onion rings, and candy, were released. These containers were dispatched by truck to Army-Air Force Exchange Service and Defense Commissary Agency facilities in Kaiserslautern, Giessen, Grundtstadt and Edingen/Neckarhausen in Germany, said John Slee, Chief of Documentation for the 838th Transportation Battalion.

However, we followed the embargo on the 52 containers with frozen or refrigerated food with interest.

The Dutch embargo ended 72 hours later, on March 24, but restrictions on the movement of food to Germany remained.

Finally, the German restrictions were dropped on the morning of March 27, when all embargoed food containers at the port of Rotterdam were released for delivery to Germany, said Wout Schalk, Manager of U.S. Government Cargo, Maersk Sealand.

The 40-foot containers were dispatched by truck March 28 to such MTMC customers as the Army-Air Force Exchange System; Defense Commissary Agency; Troop Issue Subsistence Activity; and Defense Supply Center Philadelphia, Europe Region.

"Thanks to smooth coordination with our Maersk Sealand ocean carrier contractor, we were able to keep the delay of food to a minimum," said Col. John Brown, Commander, of the 598th Transportation Group.

Brown promised fast action on any future embargoes.

"If U.S. Department of Defense cargo is involved, we will react immediately to seek ways of fast delivery," said Brown.

MTMC, freight shipper for the Department of Defense, is the prime shipping agent of perishable and nonperishable goods to military commissaries and post exchanges throughout Europe. The hub for those movements is Rotterdam.

The Military Traffic Management Command is also affected in its shipments of privately owned vehicles of service members. Dirt is a prime source of the spread of foot-and-mouth disease.

MTMC's prime contractor on the Global POV Contract, American Auto Logistics, Inc., of Monroe, N.Y., has voluntarily been washing vehicles with disinfectant, at the Brandon, United Kingdom, Vehicle Processing Center, in reaction to the disease.

"We want to ensure the vehicles do not spread the disease, and at the same time we want to meet shipping required delivery dates," said Sandy Santianna, Customer Service & Logistics Manager.

Disinfectant cleaning was later expanded by American Auto Logistics to privately owned vehicles shipping out of Bremerhaven, Germany.

As a further precaution, U.S. Army Europe severely restricted training in order to comply with an emergency order from the German Federal Ministry of Defense. The order prohibits field training outside of built-up installations, with few exceptions.