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

— a phenomenon that is not unique to refrigerated shipping. And the shipowners optimized the ships. “The palletization process, which gained traction in the 1960s, continued in the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, new pallet-friendly refrigerated containers with optimized deck configurations were built. The idea was to maximise the number of pallets that a ship could carry. The height of each deck was designed to accommodate fully stacked pallets, and ships were built more “square” to avoid unused cargo space in the holds. This was also done to allow faster deliveries, even if the ships were not sailing faster. The old breakbulk refrigerated vessels were still used for fish transport for many years. Palletisation also brought about a change in cargo handling facilities. After derricks were the most important cargo handling facility on reefer vessels, newer ships increasingly came with cranes that could load multi-pallet load carriers”. (Lennerfors, Thomas T. and Birch, Peter, 2019, p. 42)

      And sea transport of chilled and frozen goods grew and still grows today. With increasing prosperity, more and more people afford other foods, such as (southern) fruits that were previously out of reach for them. Here the collapse of the real existing socialism played an essential role, because completely new markets opened up here. And yet there were two other trends that threatened the reefer fleet as a whole. On the one hand, on the demand side, the large supermarket chains have become a power. They no longer prefer whole shiploads at longer intervals, but a continuous flow of smaller quantities — and this is where the container can show its strength. In addition, container ships with a large refrigeration capacity transport the goods more cheaply, if not better — but in the end it is the price at the supermarket refrigerated counter that counts.

      The reefer fleet reached its maximum size in the mid-1990s. At that time, about one third of refrigerated cargo was shipped in containers. 25 years later (2019) this figure was 83 %. Refrigerated vessels are now more likely to be used for transporting fish, with the cargo (frozen goods) at sea being taken over by fishing vessels. Reefer vessels will only find employment in niche markets such as banana or meat transport. Thus a fleet of beautiful white ships will become obsolete.

      Bananas are a fruit that grows all year round in the tropics — of the approximately 120 million tons that ripen each year, about 30 million tons are exported and are usually transported in ships. The majority of bananas are consumed in the main producing countries — among others India and China.

      That what we consider in this book as “classic” reefer shipping has — as we show — been strongly reduced in the last decades by other modes of transport, above all (and to whom else?) container shipping. Nevertheless, there are a small number of providers on the market, and the Corona Pandemic in 2020 has shown that the service they offer is quite well received, as it is superior to container transport and — unfortunately — also more expensive. In times when container shipping companies cancel sailings in order to adjust their capacities to the respective market conditions, reefer ship operators offer a tailor-made and fitting service. And for perishable goods such as bananas and other tropical fruits, this service is crucial for the fruit dealers. The “shelf time”, i. e. the time in which the fruit can be reasonably sold in the supermarket, should be as long as possible. And regardless of whether the banana is loaded in a container or in a refrigerated ship, the logistics are relatively similar. The bananas are picked on the producer’s plantations when transport is imminent. Usually, 12 hours pass between the harvesting of the bananas and their loading. The entire loading process then takes up to four days, whereby it is already a challenge to cool the fruits, which come on board green but with a fruit temperature of over 30° Celsius, down to the transport temperature of around 12 degrees. Once they are on board the ship, it takes around 20 days — depending on the export region — until the cargo is landed as green fruit in the region of consumption. As a rule, the fruit is then temporarily stored in the so-called “ripening house” — in these refrigerated warehouses operated by carriers, importers or the banana companies, the fruit ripens into the “yellow” banana which is then purchased by the consumer. The ripening houses are able to speed up or slow down the ripening process and thus act as a buffer that guarantees a continuous supply. This is particularly important for the German market, because in Germany 12 kilos of bananas are consumed per capita per year — next to the USA this is a top position within the industrialized countries. With an average refrigerated ship, 320 thousand cartons of bananas arrive in the Benelux countries or Germany per call, which is equivalent to two days’ consumption in Germany.

      From the ripening houses, they are then transported by truck or rail to the supermarkets or other end consumer centres in the inland. And until the bananas have to be destroyed because they can no longer be sold, there is now a maximum of 14 days left — a ticking time bomb. The bananas are not even given away if they become unattractive, because that would mean that the fruit dealers would have to pay sales tax.

      The big companies Chiquita, Del Monte, Dole and Fyffes still play a dominant role in the market, but today they have almost no ships of their own. As in tanker shipping, these companies leave this to the so-called “independent” shipowners, because the capital investment in shipping is enormously high and the fruit companies can thus play off container and reefer shipowners against each other in order to achieve the best transport price for them.

      The customers of the reefer shipping companies today increasingly include the large merchant communities or retail groups, whose names we have known since childhood. Fruit merchants who offer fair trade and organically grown products are now also among them.

      While containers are unloaded in many ports in Europe, some large ports and thus distribution centers have developed for reefer vessels. These are Portsmouth and Dover in Great Britain as well as Vlissingen (Flushing) in the Netherlands and Gdansk in Poland and St. Petersburg in Russia. In Germany, conventional fruit ships generally no longer call at the port.

      Especially in fruit transport, shipping companies are faced with the problem of the so-called “imbalance” of trades. In contrast to normal general cargo, fruits are only loaded in one direction. If this were the only cargo for the ships, they would always have to sail empty for part of the journey. The reefer operators usually transport machine parts or other industrially produced goods from Europe. Sometimes cars are also shipped. Some ships of the German Horn Line had a ramp at the stern for rolling cargo, but this remained an exception and was due to the limited port structures in French West India.

      Seatrade Reefer Chartering, for example, offers four liner services:

      –from Colombia/Dominican Republic to Europe

      –from Ecuador and Peru to Europe

      –from the Netherlands to Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles

      –from Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala to Europe

      –from Europe to French West Indies, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala

      These services partly overlap. What they all have in common is that they have the departure frequency of one week with a fixed weekday — the so-called “named day” service — which is important for planning.

      But reefer shipping companies such as Seatrade have now also become container shipping companies. In addition to the five COLOUR class reefer container ships with 672 reefer container connections with a nominal 2,259 TEU, all reefer vessels employed in the liner services have up to 250 reefer container slots (40 feet/FEU).

      As already mentioned, the fleet of “classic” reefer vessels will continue to decline. These ships are certainly much more suitable for transporting fruit than the container ships used in the liner service. However — and this is the key argument — transport in containers is simply cheaper.

      According to Clarkson Research, only three reefer ships are under construction in 2020, and the existing fleet is clearly overaged. If reefer ships continue to exist, they will probably find more employment in the transport of frozen goods such as fish or in the higher-priced segment of fast liner services with extra service and quality.

      Wieso ist ein Sticker auf der Banane?

      Why is a Label on the Banana?

      Von / by Pieter Hartog