The Curious Case Of The Disappearing Nuts

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The Curious Case of the Disappearing Nuts

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Introduction

From the case, there are cases of nuts being stolen under unclear circumstance which has made it

very difficult for the investigators to assess thee syndicate behind the shoddy business. The fact

that Alex Hernandez as he identifies himself knows so much about the process through which the

nuts have to go through for them to be transported to Ontario makes one to have a belief that he

is indeed genuine and knows his job only to later be shocked that it was a well-organized plan to

steal the nuts and the details he gave were all untrue hence being tracked is also a challenge

(Vigneron, 2017). The reason behind this is fact that the nuts are on high demand and they

rewards very well hence the idea where people are trying to make thing work out.

Explanation of the Californian Nut Industry Supply Chain

Producer Wholesaler Distributor Retailer Final consumer

The above diagram is a representation of the supply chain that is used in the supply of the nuts in

California. The Producer in this case the farmer in California who has invested in farming of nuts

and then sells them to companies that buy them in wholesale and transport them to Ontario for

processing (Hugos, 2018). The retailer is an example of the Ontario based firms that upon buying

them the nuts, they repackage them and sale them to final consumer in smaller units. The also

add value to the nuts by processing them. In this case, there is the farmer in California, and then

there are transport companies that usually bridge the gap between one market player and the

others (Stadtler, 2015). The Bulk Barn Foods Company limited is in this case the representative

of the retailer.

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Explanation of the Vulnerabilities in the Californian Nut Industry Supply Chain and How These

Are Being Exploited By Thieves

The lack of a tracking system that can actually track the movement of the trucks that are usually

charged with the responsibility of transporting the nuts is a key thing that has certainly lead to

loss of the nuts. The thieves are aware they can divert to any other route and they won’t be

noticed by anyone. It is indeed clear that there is a loop hole in that there is no guarantee that the

nuts will get to their final destination that was expected. Another key thing is lack of a system to

check the credibility of the documents being presented by drivers when they come to pick the

consignment. This is the perfect case here where the documents [resented are fake there is no

body by such details as Alex Hernandez as well as the plate number of the truck are not the

correct one hence it is hard to track the whole crime (Telep et al., 2014). This is a loophole.

Tabular Numerical Demonstration of The Value Of The Californian Nut Industry

Project

Financial Value

No. of those Benefiting from the

project

American Pistachio Growers

association Annual sales

US $1.6 Billion

It benefited more than 3000

people who are members.

Endorsement deals from

British cyclist Mark

Cavendish, Jeremy Jones (big-

mountain snowboarder), and

the U.S. water-polo teams.

Very huge financial values

gained.

It benefited all the members of the

group.

The value of each load

Each of them has been of

It has benefited over 3000 farmers

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computed based on the heists

that have taken place recently.

an average of US

$500,000.

plus their relatives. It has also

benefit all those who transport the

products, the retailers as well as

the wholesalers.

Tabular Numerical Demonstration of the Total Cost of Nut Theft To The Californian Nut

Industry;

Year

Amount Lost

In 2015

US $450,000 worth of products was lost by

Horizon. It was a load of Pistachios.

In 2014

US $7 million was lost.

In 2013

US $1 million including the $85,000, in the

Hernandez theft.

In 2012

$300,000 specifically in Tehama County this is

according to Anderson (2017).

Tabular Numerical Demonstration of the Cost of Nut Theft to the Californian Nut Industry at

Specific Points of the Supply Chain

Stage in the supply Chain

Cost Implications

The producer

Ends up earning less amount money since produce

is stolen before they are paid.

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The wholesaler

The reduced earnings due to a reduction in the

amount of the product being sold since a huge

volume is stolen without payments being made

(Liu et al., 2016).

Distributors

Lack of business since they are no longer trusted

people thinks all of them are thieves this means less

income.

Retailers

Increased cost of stocking the product

Consumers

End up being charged high prices in attempt to

recover the increased cost of operations.

Solutions for Preventing Nut Theft At Each Point Of The Supply Chain

1. Let there be a tracking system that will check the movement of the truck from the beginning of

the journey to its final destination. This will mean in the event that the driver tries to run away

with the product the system should be able to automatically prevent further movement of the

track. This will be key in ensuring that those who participate in this kind of activities are also

apprehended.

2. There should be a digital identification of the drivers’ documents just to ensure that all the

documents are authentic. This will ensure there are no cases of forgery as it has been witnessed

in the Alex Hernandez case.

3. The trucks used should be for specific brand just to ensure no any other person wakes up and

decides to steal the nuts as it is evident. By having specific branded trucks come for the products

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it will be very difficult for anyone to impersonate an employee in the attempt to steal the

products.

4. The last one is the fact that there is need for serious checks and balances in that such kind

of consignment is checked and doubled just to ensure the information given tally with what

is the system in line with the same consignment. This will ensure there are no cases of

imposters taking the hard sourced product for free.

Tabular Numerical Demonstration of the Cost Savings To The Californian Nut Industry

If Your Recommendations Are Adopted

Recommendation

Cost savings

Presence of tracking system that will check

the movement of the truck from the

beginning of the journey to its final

destination.

The cost of having to investigate the

crimes after the nuts have been stolen since

the system will now be tight in that it will

more than impossible for anyone to steal

the nuts. So the cost of investigating the

crimes in the attempt to understand what

happened will be minimized.

Digital identification of the drivers’

documents just to ensure that all the

documents are authentic.

It will be reduce the cost incurred in

establishing the actual identity of the

persons who took the nuts under the guise

of being the transporter yet in reality they

were thieves.

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The trucks used should be of a specific

brand.

This will be able to reduce monitoring

costs as well as the costs incurred in

identifying the real registration as well as

the identity if the trucks that are involved

in the heists since it is usually very

complex and time consuming. So this

measure will reduce such scenarios.

The existence of checks and balances

This will ensure that overall cost of

recovering the lost nuts is reduced since

the checks and balances will omit any

cases of losing nuts thereby increasing

accountability in the involved firms.

Conclusion

The case has been well written with much emphasis being placed on the fact that there

are no systems in place to ensure accountability. This is also based on the understanding that

almost 90 percent of all the heists that have taken place since 2013 have mainly been as a result

of poor verification of document as well as lack of accountability. This is based on the

understanding that the task of verifying documents is left to a single person in that when he or

she makes a mistake then the whole system is messed up. This should not be the case due to the

fact that the load carried by these trucks is so valued in term of the financial implications hence

ought to be well assessed and the credibility of the whole consignment established or else there

will be crises.

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Bibliography

Anderson. Z. 2017. The Curious Case of the Disappearing Nuts. Retrieved from

http://theava.com/archives/69325

Hugos, M.H., 2018. Essentials of supply chain management. John Wiley & Sons.

Liu, J.J., Wang, Z., Yao, D.Q. and Yue, X., 2016. Transaction cost analysis of supply chain

logistics services: firm-based versus port-focal. Journal of the Operational Research Society,

67(2), pp.176-186.

Stadtler, H., 2015. Supply chain management: An overview. In Supply chain management and

advanced planning (pp. 3-28). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Telep, C.W., Mitchell, R.J. and Weisburd, D., 2014. How much time should the police spend at

crime hot spots? Answers from a police agency directed randomized field trial in Sacramento,

California. Justice Quarterly, 31(5), pp.905-933.

Vigneron, P . 2017. The Curious Case of the Disappearing Nuts. Retrieved from

https://www.outsideonline.com/2186526/nut-job

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