In FreightWaves’ latest installment of its Freight All Kinds (FaK) series, we examine the bulk transport of alcoholic beverages across the world’s oceans. Part 1 focused on the colorful past of the trade. This article, Part 2, spotlights its present and future.
An ISO tank container being loaded aboard a box ship in the Port of Rotterdam. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
Wineries, breweries and distillers didn’t know it at the time, but the high-seas transport of alcohol inexorably changed on April 26, 1956, the day the world’s first commercial container ship, Malcom McLean’s SS Ideal-X, set sail from Newark, New Jersey.
In the second half of the 20th century, alcohol producers realized there was margin to be made transporting alcohol in huge volumes aboard oceangoing tankers. What they’ve come to realize in the 21st century is that there’s even more margin to be made via containerization.
According to Alison Leavitt, managing director of the Wine & Spirits Association, “If you think about just how much cheaper it has become over the years to ship a container from Rotterdam to New York, for example, and you think about the ships getting larger and larger, it has just become so much more cost-effective to use containers.”....MUCH MORE
Damien McClean, CEO of SIA Flexitanks, told FreightWaves, “There are huge implications for your cash flow if you can buy in container loads. With containers, you can spread out your purchasing in a much more intelligent way than if you had used a full parcel tanker.
“You also have much more flexibility with containers,” he added, citing a hypothetical example of a winery that was shipping 60% red wine and 40% white wine. “A parcel tanker would have to be all red or all white,” he pointed out. The non-containerized bulk-liquor model of the past no longer adds up....
Part I:
Bulk booze by sea – Part 1: The past
If interested see also:
Shipping: France's CMA CGM Does Wine-in-a-Box Gone Large
Or other liquids:
Innovation mondiale: le Groupe CMA CGM lance REEFLEX: son nouveau système unique de transport de liquides par conteneurs
And for more on Mr. McLean's ups and downs:
Shipping/Logistics— Malcolm McLean, Unsung Innovator Who Changed the World
And:
Logistics of Cold
And:
"Sea Changes – The Longer View of Shipping"
