Special logistics

Special logistics offers particular logistics services for certain circumstances. These services include fresh-food, hazardous-cargo and event logistics.

Perishable-goods logistics

Perishable-food ideas for products from around the world
Every resident of Germany eats an average of 12 kilograms of bananas each year. With an annual import total of more than 1 million bananas, Germany is Europe’s biggest importer of the fruit. Bananas must be loaded onto a ship no later than 24 hours after being picked in South America. A journey lasting 12 to 14 days brings the cargo to a transshipping port in Bremerhaven or Hamburg. From there, the fruit is taken to a depot where it ripens from green to yellow. Then, the bananas are transported from distribution centers to retail stores. Complex and exacting logistics is required to transport perishable goods around the world. New technologies and central transshipping terminals support these transports.

An integrated cold chain is the biggest challenge
To ensure that consumers obtain ripe fruit, an integrated cold chain is required. This is particularly important at every location where the goods are passed from one hand to another. New technologies such as RFID Radio frequency identification can help simplify the logistics processes. For instance, the use-by date no longer has to be checked. Companies know exactly which goods must be removed first from the warehouse. First in, first out is a secondary issue for perishable goods. For instance, strawberries that are harvested today could have better storability characteristics than strawberries that are harvested tomorrow. RFID tags can store this information. This use of RFID is attractive on the pallet level right now because it is currently too expensive to equip every individual unit with an RFID tag.

Airports serve as central transshipment points for perishable goods
The increasing desire to travel that is shared by people in the West has spurred demand for more and more exotic products. As a result, many perishable goods like fruit are imported from faraway countries by air freight. Airports see growth opportunities being created by the creation of transshipping infrastructures for perishable goods. In response to this expectation, so-called “perishable centers” where these goods will be transshipped are going up at many international airports - Germany’s second-largest perishable center is being built at the Munich Airport. It will rank only behind the one at the Frankfurt Airport.
In 2006, 140,000 tons of perishable goods were transshipped at the Frankfurt Airport. Twenty percent was fish. Such centers are being built at airports around the world as well. The “Dubai Flower Center” opened in 2006. Here, perishable goods can be stored on 30,000 square meters of space at various temperatures and processed. India, too, is investing in a “center for perishable cargo”.

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