Business View Magazine | August 2019

25 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE AUGUST 2019 Canada; then Europe; and last but not least, the USA.” The company has five locations – Boston, Toronto, Edmonton, Halifax, and the head office in Vancouver - and 85 employees. “Ten years ago, I started to look at expanding into other parts of Canada,” Harnett continues. “Halifax and Toronto was more about the vision of making us a national, Canadian-owned freight forwarder. Edmonton was more about an opportunity with some people who knew and understood the oil and gas industry, to expand into more of the non-perishable cargo to balance our risk because such a large percentage of our business was related to perishable cargo.” That expansion initiative resulted in the creation of FFAF Cargo, a subsidiary of the parent company that offers customers a complete range of innovative transportation and freight forwarding services, including: air freight; ocean freight; ground transport; intermodal rail transport; 24/7, 365-day warehousing facilities at the Vancouver, Toronto, and Halifax airports; customs brokerage; break bulking; courier service; and e-commerce fulfillment. Most recently, FFAF has added X-ray screening to its portfolio of services. In 2017, the company purchased a top-of-the-line Transport Canada- approved X-ray machine, giving its Vancouver location a Regulated Agent (RA) status. “After 9/11, airline security of cargo became a much higher priority and we moved into becoming a screener as well as a freight forwarder; X-raying products for our customers and, in some cases, even for airlines,” Harnett explains. “On the horizon, there’s a new X-ray machine that, we expect, will get approved in the near future; it combines X-ray and 3D imaging to provide a much better picture. Once that is approved, instead of having to screen everything box by box, we should be able to screen full skid loads of seafood or cherries or blueberries, etc.. The only problem is that the present X-ray machines cost about a quarter of a million; the new X-ray machine will probably cost about three million U.S. dollars. It will be much more efficient, but at a much higher cost. Also, Transport Canada is looking at the possibility of approving canines FLY ING FRESH A I R FRE IGHT , FFAF CARGO