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JANUARY / FEBRUARY . 2022 | VOL.23
What’s happening to our coffee prices?
Next year, everything coming into the UK On top of paying demurrage to the carrier,
will triple, if not quadruple the 2020 rates. we have to pay storage fees to the
terminal, if the container is there past the
In many cases, our preferred carrier — free time. For those two fees — storage
the lowest quote — doesn’t have space and demurrage — it can be several
availability, or doesn’t have containers hundreds of dollars per day, per
available, so we must go with the second container.
option. It used to be that the back- up
option was maybe a few hundred dollars Why aren’t the warehouses collecting the
more expensive. Now, we’re talking about containers on time?
a difference of sometimes thousands of
dollars between quotes, just on carrier Remember, too, that these vessels have
options.” thousands of containers being unloaded
and that coffee represents a tiny
2) Demurrage, storage and detention percentage. We’re in the queue with all
fees types of businesses.
When a carrier delivers a container to a When the warehouse is able to send a
port, we’re given a window of time, called truck on the appointment day, there can
“free time,” during which we need to also be a situation where, for a number of
collect the container. If the container is possible reasons, the trucker can’t gain
not collected during the free time, we’re access to the container. This is incredibly
charged a per-day demurrage fee. frustrating for everyone, especially
because truckers are in such short supply.
Port storage and carrier demurrage are
entirely appointment based, and we Some good news here is that over the last
schedule an appointment for the few months, the transport situation in the
warehouse to collect the container during UK has stabilised - though it will remain a
the free-time window. challenge throughout 2022.
Some carriers/ports give us 7 to 10
business days of free time. But over this
past year, the warehouses have been
taking three weeks or longer to collect the
containers from the port.
InterAmerica Coffee London
