Coca-Cola is so desperate for freight space it’s importing ingredients on coal ships

Coca-Cola is so desperate for freight space it’s importing ingredients on coal ships
Nicolás Rivero October 5, 2021

Like almost every global manufacturer, Coca-Cola normally moves its goods in shipping containers. That’s become the standard way to move things through the global economy for a reason: Packing goods into equally-sized metal boxes makes it easy to transfer them between trucks, trains, and ships, alleviating logistical headaches and keeping transportation costs low.

But, thanks to the pandemic, container shipping is experiencing such severe price spikes and logistical delays that Coca-Cola has decided to ditch the system altogether for some of its cargo. In an Oct. 1 LinkedIn post, Coca-Cola supply chain director Alan Smith revealed the company had chartered three “bulk carriers”—a type of cargo ship that nowadays mainly transports coal and grain—to carry materials between Asian suppliers and its US factories. The company is, essentially, reverting to an era of logistics that most firms started to leave behind in the 1960s.

more....https://qz.com/2069155/coca-cola-is-importing-ingredients-on-coal-ships/