The shipping of Irish food, including meat and dairy produce, has encountered a number of obstacles as a result of the impact of Covid-19 – meaning that transport costs have soared in recent weeks and months.
Speaking on the Agricultural Science Association’s (ASA’s) webinar on “Agri Supply Chain amidst Covid-19”, director of Dairy Industry Ireland (DII) Conor Mulvihill and director of Meat Industry Ireland (MII) Cormac Healy outlined the shipping issues being faced by the industry.
Commenting, Mulvihill explained: “Supply chains have essentially been shredded.
You’re having a kind of ripple effect in terms of ports being closed in China at the start of the year.
“All those containers are delayed coming back and our geographical location on the periphery of Europe means we’re the last economy to be getting those containers even when they’re coming back across Europe.”
Quoting a member, Mulvihill said: “They can’t be got for love nor money at the moment; but hopefully those things work themselves out as time goes on.”
‘Ports starting to move again’
MII director Healy also commented on the issue, adding: “In China we have seen the market free up as it came out of Covid-19; ports are now starting to move again since a number of weeks ago, and you’re seeing product which was sitting quayside for a number of weeks begin to move into the market – hopefully that will bring a renewed demand for some product.
“The other issue is largely concerned with that kind of lock-up of containers that there had been for a number of months in China and the delay in those being emptied and coming back up to this side of the world.”
“Speaking to exporters, they are still running, at this point about 70-80% of what they would require in terms of containers and the costs have probably doubled in the last 12 months for containers,” Healy warned.
Backload bothers
Turning to logistics in Europe, Healy said that, in the context of Covid-19, it “has held up remarkably well”.
“Most of our exports to the continent or to the UK are roll-on roll-off trucks on the ferry routes,” he added.
The MII director noted that there had been concerns regarding whether border documentation was required for drivers entering different countries, but the European Commission’s “green lanes” have been working well in that regard.
However, he noted: “One of the concerns that have been raised around that logistics piece has been that traditionally the truck that would bring a container of meat to France or Germany or Italy would be getting a back-load. It might be food or dry goods or anything.
Because of the shutdown in the economies everywhere and the shutdown here, they’re struggling to get those back-loads.
“And that means, on the one hand you get a truck going over; generally it would be coming back within a day or so, having picked up its truckload, maybe waiting a bit longer.
“That’s increasing the costs for the haulage companies – or they may fail to get a load and that has an impact on the cost of that. That’s one of the issues that are there,” Healy concluded.