Agriculture & Food

According to reports, due to the concentration of shipping vessels and containers in major export ports in the United States, Asia, and Europe, and the lack of containers in Brazilian ports, a Brazilian coffee manufacturer recently chose to transport coffee beans for export by plane.

The Brazilian website "G1" reported on October 7 that in the past month, the company had 5,000 bags of coffee stranded in the company, and another 960 bags in the port of Santos (Porto de Santos). These products should have been shipped to the United States, but the delivery is still indefinitely.

The main reason for the shortage of containers in Brazilian ports is that high demand from export ports in Asia, the United States and Europe has attracted shipowners because these ports are more profitable compared to other countries such as Brazil.

Flávia Lancha, vice president of the coffee company, said that 9 tons of coffee beans have been transported by plane to London, England, and the company is considering using this transportation method again.

Marcos Matos, general manager of the Brazilian Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafé), said that this is only an isolated case, and shipping costs may be 500% more expensive than ocean shipping. And the capacity is also small. He also pointed out that the products that are shipped by air are usually industrialized products, such as roasted coffee, ground coffee and instant coffee.

It is reported that in the 2020/21 harvest season, Brazil exported a total of 45.6 million bags of 60 kilograms of coffee, of which only 0.1% was exported by plane.

In addition, according to the Brazilian National Federation of Industry (CNI) research, more than 70% of companies and industry associations indicated that they were affected by the lack of containers or ships, and more than half of companies and industry associations had experienced the cancellation or suspension of scheduled transportation.

Among the agricultural products, the most affected are meat and cotton. Despite this, the industry’s export records are still breaking new highs, and producers believe that if there are no obstacles in the transportation chain, these figures may be even higher.