One of the shipping industry’s hottest markets is cold boxes. Demand to ship fresh food across the oceans is twice as high as it is for other products. The reason is twofold: (1) Refrigerated containers known as “reefers” can keep food fresh for more than a month, allowing distributors to safely send everything from orange juice to lobsters around the world. And (2) the growing affluence of the global population, especially in Asia, has boosted demand for more-expensive foods.
“For the growing middle class, basic food like rice is no longer enough,” said the head of one French shipping giant. “They want their fruit, vegetables and fresh meat, and that’s pushing the industry to move more and more products under cold management.” Ten years ago, you could find strawberries in Denmark for only 3 months a year. Now, writes The Wall Street Journal (April 30, 2018), it’s year-round, thanks to reefers, and everyone from the smallest to the biggest shippers can join the supply chain.
It takes as long as 18 days to ship grapes from Peru to Philadelphia. The fruit “is put to sleep” in a controlled atmosphere that delays the ripening process before it’s distributed to supermarkets across the East Coast. Until the late 1990s, fresh produce was shipped on break bulk ships—general cargo vessels with big refrigerated spaces—from the production site to a single destination. Cargoes were usually limited to bananas, with the ships being operated by major distributors like Chiquita. Smaller producers that couldn’t afford to hire such vessels confined themselves to local markets.
Classroom discussion questions:
- What is the role of “reefers” in the global fresh food supply chain?
- Why have they proliferated?