Following on January 28's "Mandy Rice-Davies Moment Ahead: 'Biden Adviser Sees Limited Inflation Impact From Red Sea Attacks'".
From Politico.eu, January 26:
Houthi attacks on shipping are disrupting shipments of perishables, with exporters in southern Europe most affected.
When Houthi missiles began raining down on container vessels in the Red Sea last year, European leaders feared a blowback on energy supplies. Three months on, it’s food that is under fire, with exporters and shippers warning of growing damage to the fruit and vegetable trade.
Shipping companies have halted operations through the strait of Bab el-Mandeb and re-routed around the Cape of Good Hope, adding delays of up to three weeks for transport to and from Europe. Besides a five-fold surge in container costs, that means that fresh produce is more likely to rot en route.
“There is significant risk,” Marco Forgione, director general at the Institute of Export & International Trade, told POLITICO, citing a range of product categories beyond fruits and vegetables.
From meat and grains to tea and coffee, if the disruption continues it will “tear into the wider food economy,” he argued. Processing is another weak link, with disordered palm oil deliveries slowing down the preparation of higher-value foods.
Exporters are particularly affected in southern European countries like Italy, Greece and Cyprus. Since their cargoes must now leave the Mediterranean to the west and go the long way round to the Middle East and Asia, many are struggling to get perishables to foreign markets on time, imperiling goods worth billions of euros.
“The lengthening of times can create problems in the preservation of the fresh produce with the risk of losing important slices of the market,” Coldiretti, Italy’s largest agricultural lobby, has warned.
In many cases, the “shelf life of fresh products [does] not allow for lengthening the journey by 15 to 20 days,” Cristian Maretti, president of Legacoop Agroalimentare, which represents Italian farming and food cooperatives, told Ansa....
....MUCH MORE
The article raises the important point that shipping to-and-from the eastern Mediterranean is terribly affected. So why aren't NATO members Greece and Turkey raising more of a stink?
