Cool Cargoes

An estimated 300,000 40-foot reefer containers are expected to be added to the global fleet by 2018 as strong demand for perishables drives the business and improving technology enables their long distance transport.

Blueberries, strawberries, cherries, avocados, durian — markets across Asia are filled with fruits regardless of the season, serving a fast-rising demand that is being driven by urbanization, increasing wealth and improving refrigeration technology.

Baltic Reefers will acquire NYKCool from NYK Reefers, the refrigerated shipping segment of Japanese shipping giant NYK Line on Sept. 1.

The Port of Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 22 announced the cancellation of a contract covering two reefer jobs with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, citing dips in productivity at its Terminal 6 facility.

As global demand for refrigerated transport service rises, Ryder Europe is adding more temperature-controlled trailers to its rental fleet in the United Kingdom.

Refrigerated capacity in the container ship fleet is expected to surge around 22 percent through 2018, at the expense of a declining specialized reefer fleet, according to Drewry’s latest Reefer Shipping Market Annual Review & Forecast.

Despite the loss of a refrigerated rail pioneer, other operators say they are still growing and that they’re better shielded from poor rail performance than Cold Train was.

Cold Train, a provider of refrigerated intermodal transport from Washington state throughout the rest of the country, has ended service, citing poor BNSF Railway performance.

A number of new online grocery ventures are now available, using a variety of logistics models. "They all understand that there is a cost to same-day delivery," says Satish Jindel, president of SJ Consulting Group.

More than $15 billion will be spent on expansion of India’s cold chain during the next five years, according to a study by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

With the pending expansion to the Port of Savannah of a U.S. Department of Agriculture pilot program, three southern U.S. ports will be able to receive South American blueberries and grapes.

Some U.S. states aren’t waiting for federal rules but are increasing inspection and enforcement actions related to temperature-controlled transport on their own.

An increasing Asian appetite for live lobster is being met with a weekly shipment of live lobsters from Nova Scotia to South Korea.

According to the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization, enough food is grown worldwide to feed everyone on the planet. The trick is to make sure food doesn’t disappear before consumption because of waste or post-harvest loss, that it can be transported where it’s needed and that the population with the food deficit can afford to pay.

As the world's largest corporation, Wal-Mart holds hefty leverage over its vendors. Its next mission is to eliminate waste within its massive system, even on food, and vendors are taking note.

A specialized reefer carrier is taking steps to renew its aging breakbulk fleet by purchasing two new container vessels.

Refrigerated just isn’t cold enough for some shippers, especially those moving extremely temperature-sensitive life sciences or medical products.

Yusen Logistics has expanded its cross-border trucking services for Indochina with the launch of a temperature-controlled less-than-truckload service for food products moving between Vietnam and Cambodia.

AGRO Merchants Group has been building its portfolio of temperature-controlled warehouse and distribution facilities at nine U.S. and European locations, and CEO Neal Rider says there’s more to come.

Three companies this month have announced investments in temperature-controlled facilities near the Port of Charleston.

New Orleans Cold Storage has plans to more than double the size of its existing storage space at the Port of Charleston, South Carolina.

Dry van and flatbed spot market truck rates remained steady this week, while refrigerated trucking rates continued their upward trend.

Growth at North America’s two largest cold storage companies has mushroomed in recent years, with both looking at overseas opportunities.

Trucking is a notoriously fragmented business. The Department of Transportation estimates there are 500,000 trucking companies in the U.S., with 97 percent of them operating 20 trucks or less.

While some cold storage companies are growing rapidly, the head of one midsize warehouse company says that doesn’t apply throughout the industry.

The world’s economic focus during the 1980s and 1990s was trained on the Asian Tigers of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Now Argentina’s top agricultural official says the focus is about to shift south.

Meat and produce exporters looking to bypass California’s 22-metric-ton weight limit on over-the-road shipments soon may be able to ship overweight containers to the Port of Oakland by barge.

In 1988, when the Berlin Wall was still standing and Russia was still a part of the Soviet Union, McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in Moscow. The first of the chain’s restaurants to open inside a communist country, it drew crowds and global attention. Today, McDonald’s has 35,000 restaurants in more than 100 nations.

Despite growing concerns about tight supplies and rising prices, U.S. red meat exports performed well in February...

Orbcomm, a global wireless asset-tracking company, has acquired Euroscan, expanding its product line and ability to track refrigerated containers and trailers worldwide.

U.S. red meat exports kicked off 2014 on a “positive note,” although market conditions suggest the year ahead could be “challenging,” according to statistics...

Overcapacity is a threat to container lines’ refrigerated cargo segment this year, despite projected growth in the global reefer market, according to Peter Frederiksen, a member of the executive board of Hamburg Süd.

The U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act has impacted the global food supply chain and, by extension, global reefer carriers too.

A Michigan-based company has acquired the operator of a refrigerated intermodal rail service, known as ColdTrain, and plans to at least triple Rail Logistics’ container fleet over the next five years.

Forecasters expect modest growth in U.S. and global shipments of refrigerated cargoes in containers.

On a recent day in mid-December, two 747 freighters flew into MidAmerica St. Louis Airport loaded with 250,000 pounds of Chilean blueberries. Just days later, another 160,000 pounds of the fruit landed at the airport.

New and expanding refrigerated rail services are delivering new options for smaller food shippers who soon could be left out in the cold by western railroads as thousands of 50-year-old mechanical boxcars are retired in the coming years.

Container carriers and shippers of refrigerated cargoes, facing slower transit times and more distant markets, are looking to high-tech solutions from container manufacturers.

Following a frenetic decade of ups and downs in volumes and rates, the steamship industry is seeking stability through alliances and cost-cutting that has lengthened voyage transit times. While many shippers don’t see much of a problem in slow-steaming, exporters of refrigerated goods have more reason to be concerned.

Westwood Shipping has found new use for its fleet of four BulkCon ships. The carrier, which has specialized in transporting forest products since 1892, added refrigerated cargoes to the mix in the summer of 2013.