Yusen Logistics and Imperial Health Services have started a dedicated, temperature-controlled ocean freight consolidation service from Europe to southern Africa.
This weekly service, which begins in January, will also include East and West Africa later in 2014.
Yusen explained the service will be cost competitive with air freight. “With a door-to-door pallet rate structure for consignments which can range from a single pallet to a dedicated container, the new service enables maximized quality and minimized risk, with a complete audit trail for temperature control (15ᵒC/25ᵒC) and security,” the third party logistics services firm said.
Collections will be made throughout Europe by Yusen and received into the 3PL’s European pharmaceutical hub in Antwerp. Weekly sailings will depart from the Port of Antwerp direct to Cape Town where product will be pre-cleared and offloaded into Imperial’s local warehouse. “Quality sampling can be performed on request,” Yusen said.
Onward transportation is by fully temperature controlled vehicles.