Die deutsche Kühlschifffahrt - German Reefer Shipping. Karsten Kunibert Krüger-Kopiske

Kindesbeinen an kennen. Auch Fruchthändler, die fair gehandelte und biologisch angebaute Produkte anbieten, gehören mittlerweile dazu.

      Während Container in vielen Häfen Europas gelöscht werden, haben sich bei den Kühlschiffen einige große Häfen und somit Verteilzentren herausgebildet. Dies sind Portsmouth und Dover in Großbritannien sowie Vlissingen (engl. Flushing) in den Niederlanden und Gdansk in Polen sowie St. Petersburg in Russland. In Deutschland kommen in der Regel keine konventionellen Fruchtschiffe mehr an.

      Speziell im Fruchttransport besteht für die Reedereien das Problem der sogenannten „Unpaarigkeit“ der Verkehre. Im Gegensatz zu normalem Stückgut werden Früchte nur in eine Richtung verladen. Wenn dies die einzige Ladung für die Schiffe wäre, würden diese immer einen Teil der Reise leer fahren müssen. Die Reefer-Operator transportieren ausgehend aus Europa meist Maschinenteile oder andere industriell erzeugte Waren. Teilweise werden auch Automobile verschifft. Einige Schiffe der deutschen Horn-Linie hatten am Heck eine Rampe für rollende Ladung, was aber eine Ausnahme blieb und den eingeschränkten Hafenstrukturen in Französisch-Westindien geschuldet war. So bietet z. B. Seatrade Reefer Chartering vier Liniendienste an:

      –von Kolumbien/Dominikanische Republik nach Europa

      –von Ecuador und Peru nach Europa

      –von den Niederlanden nach Surinam und den Niederländischen Antillen

      –von Kolumbien, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala nach Europa

      –von Europa nach Französisch-Westindien, Kolumbien, Costa Rica, Honduras und Guatemala

      Diese Dienste überschneiden sich teilweise. Gemeinsam ist ihnen allen, dass sie die für die Planbarkeit wichtige Abfahrtfrequenz von einer Woche mit einem festen Wochentag haben – den sogenannten „named day“-Service.

      Doch auch die Kühlschiffsreeder wie Seatrade sind mittlerweile Containerreeder geworden. Neben den fünf Kühlcontainerschiffen der COLOUR-Klasse mit 672 Kühlcontaineranschlüssen bei nominal 2.259 TEU verfügen alle in den Liniendiensten beschäftigten Kühlschiffe bis zu 250 Kühlcontainer-Stellplätze (40 Fuß/FEU).

      Wie bereits ausgeführt, wird die Flotte der „klassischen“ Kühlschiffe“ weiter abnehmen. Für den Transport von Früchten sind diese Schiffe sicherlich deutlich besser geeignet als die im Liniendienst eingesetzten Containerschiffe. Allerdings – und dies ist das ausschlaggebende Argument – ist der Transport im Container schlicht kostengünstiger.

      Laut Clarkson Research sind 2020 nur drei Kühlschiffe in Bau, und die bestehende Flotte ist deutlich überaltert. Wenn es Kühlschiffe weiterhin geben sollte, werden diese wohl mehr im Transport von Gefriergut wie Fisch oder im höherpreisigen Segment der schnellen Liniendienste mit einem Extra an Service und Qualität ihre Beschäftigung finden.

      Even though this book deals with German refrigerated shipping, its shipping companies and their ships, it is necessary to take a look at the general development of refrigerated shipping in order to be able to place the described facts in context. German refrigerated shipping has — apart from a few specific German aspects — mostly developed along general lines. In addition, international refrigerated shipping has developed along a line that has also affected shipping in general.

      Refrigerated shipping as we know it today had its origins in the years after 1870 and began essentially with the transport of frozen meat between the southern hemisphere and Europe/North America. Especially in Great Britain, whose population had grown strongly due to industrialisation, there was an enormous shortage of meat. In the British colonies of Australia and New Zealand as well as in Latin America the climatic conditions for sheep and cattle breeding were excellent and there was enough space to keep large herds at correspondingly low costs. The price difference therefore justified the effort. “The meat, which had cost between 1.5d and 2d per pound, was sold at Smithfield Market, the beef at 4.5d to 5.5d per lb. and the mutton at 5.5d to 6d per lb. (Kerbrech, 1998, p. 1)

      The fact that one could beat out up to four times the price in the mother country justified the effort and entrepreneurial risk. But the transport was indeed very risky, because until the 1870s there were no refrigeration units on board and so shipments were made on sailing ships with ice and in insulated rooms. And then it was a race against time, with unfavourable wind conditions and the crossing of the hot equatorial zone.

      But in many cases the transport of live animals was not an alternative because “the reason for not importing live animals was convincing. During the journey some would die and all would lose weight. The meat of the surviving animals was inferior in taste to that of animals that had not been on the journey for several weeks. There was also the danger of introducing contagious diseases, with cattle from Russia having a particularly bad reputation”. (Jarvis, 1998, p. 220)

      Thus, the transport of meat and refrigerated cargo in general could not be carried out successfully and economically over long distances without the appropriate refrigeration or freezing facilities being available on land and on ships. There is no need to go into the technology and its development further at this point; we have devoted a separate section of this book to this subject.

      In 1861, Thomas Mort built the world’s first freezing plant in Sydney, which inspired further developments in this direction in other parts of the world, as the potential of using refrigeration or freezing to preserve meat for shipping over long distances became obvious. Attempts were made to install equipment on ships as well. Although the French, equipped with the system developed by Charles Tellier, took the lead on the FRIGORIFRIQUE in the 1870s, there was little willingness to develop these systems further and British companies quickly took over the market leadership in this area.

      The Clipper DUNEDIN was retrofitted with a steam-powered refrigeration system and in 1882 undertook successful voyages from Australia to Great Britain, prompting others to use this technology on their ships as well.

      Technically, freezing food is much easier and uses less energy than cooling, where ventilation is often required to remove harmful exhaust gases from the cargo holds.

      Further advances in refrigeration technology were made in the United Kingdom in the 1930s. “Chilled meat was considered to be more palatable than frozen meat because the blood in chilled meat does not freeze and the blood vessels do not burst, resulting in a loss of flavour”. (Kerbrech, 1998, p. 3). Unfortunately, until then, it was not possible to transport chilled meat over longer distances — i. e. from Australia to Great Britain — this was only possible over the shorter distance from the La Plata estuary. In particular, there was competition between the British Blue Star Line, which belonged to the Vestey Group that still exists today and had strong interests in traffic with Latin America, and the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line and the Port Line, both of which were involved in traffic with the colonies in the southern hemisphere.

      Although the banana transport is the best known transport of chilled goods, it is not the largest, as these are undoubtedly the frozen transports of meat, which accounted for approximately 25 % in 2014 — compared to 17 % for bananas.

      The transport of bananas began long before the freezer transport — but initially only on the comparatively short routes between Central and North America or between the Canary Islands and Europe. In particular, the sailing refrigerated ships in the Caribbean were dependent on wind and the lack of ventilation on board meant that the ethylene gas that the bananas developed reduced their quality. The use of ships with freezing plants was not an option, because bananas had to be shipped at a temperature of 12 degrees Celsius and in ventilated rooms. On the comparatively short distance between the Caribbean and North America, but also between the Azores and Northern Europe, the transport of bananas was possible, although here too, many fruits spoiled during transport.

      “It was the establishment of large plantations in Central America, which produced enormous quantities at low economic (though not social and ecological) costs in connection with the railway, that created a large market for bananas in the United States at the end of the 19th century. More than 12 million banana bundles passed through US ports in 1892, and bananas were considered “staple foods” and were mentioned in recipe books”. (Lennerfors, Birch, 2019, p. 32). In this rather capital-intensive business, the intertwining of business