February’s coronavirus shutdown in Wuhan, China hit American food exports hard. Shippers transport perishable food in refrigerated containers called “reefers.” When unloaded, they must connect to electric power via “reefer plugs.” Reefer plugs at China ports filled up after the Wuhan outbreak.
Now, it’s happening again.
Reefer-plug capacity maxed out in February because China severely restricted trucking in the wake of the outbreak as ships continued to arrive and unload new reefers.
Today, the logjam stems from the COVID outbreak at a Beijing food market, first disclosed on June 11. China believes food may have been the source of infections.