Maersk takes Indian grapes to Europe

Mar 9, 2020

With the oncoming season of grapes, Indian grape exporters will have a favourable benefit of end-to-end cold chain connection to North Europe with a new service from Maersk offering its service.

Maersk has announced that it is ready to offer its new service to North Europe by offering an end-to-end cold chain logistics solution for grape exporters from Nasik and Sangli.

The new service will enable booking shipping management, offer inland and waterways ocean transportation, digital cargo tracking, full customs clearance amongst other services as a part of the end-to-end solution. The entire operation is set to improve turnaround time till North Europe by four days.

The grape consignment will be shipped in reefer containers with a remote container management solution which will check and continuously monitors atmospheric conditions inside the container and will provide visibility of the same to the consumers.

Steve Felder, MD of Maersk South Asia, said the all-encompassing service is aimed at streamlining the shipping process for exporters.

“Nasik is a priority market for the exports of grapes from India. With our end-to-end cold chain solutions, we aim to enable the exporters to take their grapes from Nasik to North Europe with a fast turn-around time, and with more simplicity,” Felder said.

“By providing a one-stop-shop solution, we are enabling the farmers to focus on what they do best, leave the logistics to us and not get bothered by any challenges that they might face in the journey of their produce from their farms to their customers.”

Felder said Maersk hopes this development will definitely help to increase opportunities for the exporters of all fresh produce from India.

“Besides grapes, the region also yields other quality agro-produce like onions, tomato, chilli, baby corn, okra and other vegetables, which have immense trade potential in the global markets,” Felder said.

“With our cold chain logistics solutions, we aim to further open-up and liberalize the agro-economy of the country enabling farmers and entrepreneurs to be a part of the international trade ecosystem, Felder added.”

Mayank Tandon, vice-president of FreshTrop, highly praised Maersk’s cold chain solution and said it has plenty of potential for export logistics.

“We are extremely excited about the value proposition of Maersk’s cold chain solution. As a unique proposition in the industry, it has the potential to add great value by the virtue of visibility it offers us on our cargo,” Tandon said.

“We are looking forward to serving our customers better with the tools that Maersk has placed in our hands through a single window solution for our logistic needs.”