Ask any food industry executive to cite his or her greatest concern, and the answer will almost always be the same: product safety. But the list doesn't stop there. Like any other business sector, food manufacturers are grappling with a number of challenges, many of them related to the age of the internet and social media.

With all the years of studies and analyses showing the benefits of short sea shipping on America's 96,000 miles of coastline and 22,000 miles of inland waterways, there is still no federal policy on development of America's Marine Highway. In fact, the Administration has tabled discussions about maritime initiatives until 2017, which essentially means maritime policies will wait until the next administration takes office.

The many operational differences between domestic and international transportation has historically meant separate and distinct management of these two sectors. Research shows that today's shippers, however, believe there are efficiencies to be gained by managing both domains on a single platform.

As tainted-food scandals go, it wasn't so bad. The discovery early this year of unlabeled horse meat in European food products wasn't for the most part a safety issue. It was a violation of cultural norms, to be sure, as well as a truth-in-packaging problem. Most of all, it was a supply-chain failure.