While perishable cargo is highly profitable for freight forwarders, it can add additional risks, resulting in ruined cargo and dissatisfied customers. FP Marine Risks Perishable Cargo Claims Experts, Richard Kamppari-Baker offers some advice on the transport of perishable and temperature controlled cargo to minimise costly and time-consuming claims and ruining your business reputation.
The duty of merchants, carrier and freight forwarders is to ensure cargo arrives in the same time, or as close as possible to the condition it was prior to transport. Refrigerated cargo adds many more complications because the minite the cargo arrives into your care, it is already deteriorating and the rate of deteroratin is highly independent on the actions of the carrier, freight forwarder and the merchant.
There are a few obvious checks that can be done to minimise the risks of deterioration.
Pre-trip checking - Ensure the unit is clean and free of odours and the floor channels and drains are clear of debris. Some highly odious products may leave odours within containers from previous voyages. Perishable cargo can be highly susceptible to even the most hadmless of smells. Like worn socks in your gym locker, the smell rarely improves when the doors are shut. Reject any container you consider a problem because this could taint the entire shipment.
Hot stuffing - This is where the reefer has not been properly cooled down to the designated temperature before loading. Reefers are not intended to cool down the goods in the course of transit. They are designed solely to maintain the temperature. After the cooling unit has been stuffed, the restrictive ventilation makes the cargo difficult to cool. Make sure the unit is properly cooled before loading.
Cargo maintenance - Emissions released from some cargo may cause changes to the temperature. Make sure the cargo is correctly packed and stored and the temperature in maintained and properly ventilated prior to loading.
Temperature or controlled atmosphere settings - Check the settings and ventilation. It's amazing how many claims arise because of people making a mistake on the application of Celsius to Fahrenheit or confuse Celsius with Fahrenheit settings. Always double check the settings and make sure the ventilation settings have been set correctly and/or holes are uncovered.
Stowage - Always ensure stows are below load-line limits and not extended beyond T-section of the floor. Naturally merchants will be inclined to stuff as much cargo as possible and poor ventilation will have serious effect on the deterioration rate.
Temperature maintenance is paramount for perishable cargo and if this is properly carried out along with expert guidelines for the cargo then it should arrive in good order unless something happens outside your control.
as featured on Voice, January 2014, page 6-7, by Richard Kamppari-Baker
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