Closer to our customers but logistics situation remains challenging

The numerous national and port lockdowns have resulted in containers being unevenly distributed and the capacity at shipping companies reduced – and this has implications for all our products. However, there is some good news: thanks to our new warehouse in Marseilles, we are now able to offer various kinds of organic sugar on the southern European market with much shorter transport routes and on better terms.

The global logistics situation was thrown off balance by the coronavirus pandemic and remains problematic. For us, this has meant a big reduction in our planning capability, longer transit times, longer routes and, in some cases, huge increases in the cost of importing our products.

Cocoa, sugar, vanilla and spices: planning is more difficult and costs are rising

In some cases, there have been lengthy delays with shipping our organic cocoa beans, sugar, vanilla and spices and some of the freight prices for exporting overseas have risen many times over. Existing booked deliveries are constantly postponed or curtailed, making reliable planning difficult. For this year and next year, we are expecting import procedures to be more complicated than usual and shipping costs higher.

More resources for global logistics

To overcome these challenges, we have deployed more personnel to handle import logistics and so, with a great deal of extra effort compared with our normal day-to-day business, we have been able to offset most of the problems. Thanks to our many years of experience and excellent network of international logistics partners, we are confident that we can still offer you a very good service.

Order early for greater security

We continue to recommend that you place your orders for cocoa, sugar, vanilla and spices with us as early as possible and plan in some buffer time to allow for any delays. If you have any questions about logistics or transport, we will be pleased to help.

Organic raw cane sugar now imported via Marseilles

Shorter transport routes are now enabling us to offer our products at better prices while at the same time keeping our CO2 footprint as small as possible. For over a year now, we have been operating closer to our customers in the southern European market, offering various kinds of organic and Fairtrade sugars, including whole cane sugar and raw cane sugar.

The opening of a new warehouse site in Marseilles, France, in June 2020 enabled us to get even closer to our customers, a high priority for us. The sea freight containers now bring organic whole cane sugar and raw cane sugar from South and Central America directly to France, where they are unloaded at the port of Fos-sur-Mer, not far from our warehouse. Shorter transport routes from the warehouse to the customer mean we can offer the organic and Fair for Life sugars that are so popular in France at even better prices.