Amid supply chain difficulties, Dunavant sees potential in Mexico.
Dunavant Enterprises has placed a large bet on Mexico as a solution to overstressed global supply chains and record container backlogs at US ports.
In Memphis, Tennessee, Dunavant has started dedicated Mexico cross-border and intra-Mexico operations, delivering logistics management solutions with a new set of office sites ranging from Brownsville, Texas, through Arizona, to Otay Mesa, California.
The corporation has established operations in Mexican seaports such as Ensenada, Altamira, Veracruz, and Manzanillo and offices in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey.
One of Dunavant’s key goals with the extension is to provide shippers with an alternative to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where container backlogs have slowed freight movement in recent months.
“A lot of companies are shifting away from China and boosting their production in Mexico,” said Johnny Araiza, Dunavant’s newly appointed vice president of cross-border and Mexico operations. “We’ve also been able to assist them with a workaround concerning the Long Beach port because obviously, the congestion is awful right now.”
Dunavant now has cross-border operations in Laredo, El Paso, Eagle Pass, Pharr, and Brownsville, and sites in Nogales and Douglas, Arizona, and Calexico, San Diego, and Otay Mesa, California.
“We’re one of the few forwarders that can come through a port in Mexico, like the Port of Ensenada, and transit towards the border and avoid Long Beach, enabling a shorter cycle for clients to get their product from overseas into the United States,” Araiza explained.
According to Araiza, based in Laredo, Dunavant’s expansion provides shippers with door-to-door service for both northern and southbound freight.
Trucking, air and ocean freight, cross-docking, warehousing, distribution, brokerage, insurance, and consultancy are among Dunavant’s Mexico-based activities.
William B. “Billy” Dunavant Jr., a Memphis businessman, created the corporation in 1928. For more than 50 years, Dunavant thrived in the worldwide cotton trade. In 2010, the firm broadened its logistics strategy beyond cotton to include automotive aftermarket products, chemicals, food and beverage, paper and packaging, and retail.
Dunavant has 220 employees in the United States, Mexico, Canada, and China as of Sunday, February 20, 2022. One of Dunavant’s largest locations is in Pasadena, Texas, where the company employs 80 people and operates more than 1 million square feet of warehouse space and 150 intermodal trucks.
Dunavant presently ships approximately 320 cross-border shipments per week, primarily through Laredo. Dunavant hopes to service roughly 3,000 US-Mexico shipments every week along the border in a year or so, according to Araiza.
“We perform distribution, warehousing, and just-in-time pickup along the border, and we’ve been highly focused on automotive customers,” Araiza explained. “Texas’ automotive industry is expanding. Consider Tesla and Toyota in Austin and San Antonio. But we’re also starting to see more food manufacturers in Mexico, as well as more food and beverage customers sending their goods to the United States.”
Laredo and Otay Mesa, California, have the two busiest commercial truck crossings between the United States and Mexico.
According to FreightWaves’ Outbound Tender Volume Index — a monthly change that indicates which markets are seeing extended volume growth or contraction — Texas and California have grown in the last month and a half.
With the start of the spring crop season in March, both states should continue to see increased freight volumes.
Schneider Electric will construct plants in Texas and Mexico.
Schneider Electric recently announced the construction of a 160,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in El Paso.
The facility aims to increase electrical product manufacturing and delivery to clients in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
The factory will build bespoke low-voltage switchboards that distribute electricity to one or more sources in commercial situations. It is expected to be completed by the end of the year, resulting in 400 employment.
Once completed, the El Paso site will be Schneider Electric’s largest manufacturing unit in the United States.
“The supply chain problems of the last year have proven the significance of rapidly developing our local manufacturing capacity,” Annette Clayton, CEO and president of Schneider Electric North America said in a statement. “The El Paso production facility will help us to get items into the hands of our distributors and end-users faster.”
Schneider Electric is investing more than $100 million in El Paso and Tlaxcala, Mexico, where it wants to develop another manufacturing factory. In addition, the company is considering existing facilities in Mexico City for conversion into a manufacturing facility.
Schneider Electric is a multinational corporation headquartered in France that provides energy and digital automation solutions to various sectors. The corporation employs 128,000 workers across 481 locations in 107 countries.
Grovara establishes a presence in Mexico, accelerating LATAM expansion.
B2B marketplace on the internet Grovara announced the opening of an office in Mexico City to fulfill the growing demand from Mexican and Latin American merchants for the company’s online wholesale U.S. product marketplace.
“The increase in demand for natural and organic products in Mexico has sparked a frenzy of interest from top retailers on our platform that spans LATAM,” said Eugenia Schlitter, Govara’s sales director, in a statement.
According to a press statement, Grovara increased revenues by 75% in 2021, with Mexico and LATAM accounting for 40% of the gain. Grovara has introduced American trademarks such as True Citrus and Pnuff to new markets in Chile, Colombia, Panama, and Peru.
Grovara, situated in Philadelphia, was founded in 2010 to provide solutions for American merchants of organic food goods to connect with overseas wholesale purchasers. Grovara’s platform, which includes automation and machine learning-based capabilities, makes exporting and importing easier.
