By Phil Hastings

This year has seen an unprecedented surge in reefer container breakdowns and perishable shipment failures, a logistics executive told the Hamburg conference.

Frank Ganse, global director of reefer logistics for international forwarder Kuehne & Nagel, said the sector was seeing "an accumulation of technical mistakes by carriers, their service suppliers or depots".

"The number of reefer breakdowns, especially in 2009, is increasing and is now at a level we have never seen before," he said. "For sure, we have seen containers malfunctioning in the past but not the amount being seen now.

"Despite clear shipping instructions, we have recently seen an accumulation of wrong reefer container settings, especially wrong ventilation and humidification settings. From time to time, we are also seeing wrong temperature settings."

In addition to wrong settings, continued Ganse, there were a growing number of cases where reefer containers were being supplied in a dirty condition or without the proper checks having been made.

"We are detecting those mistakes before transporting the container to the final client because we have instructed our truckers, who are dedicated specialised reefer truckers, to check the containers are clean, the temperature settings are correct and all those things," he said.
"But this accumulation of problems concerns me a little bit. The question here is do these problems arise from the financial difficulties carriers are faced with? Is this related to cost-cutting programmes? I don't know."

www.cargonewsasia.com