Export and logistics
How a consolidated container actually gets built
Consolidation sounds like a commercial arrangement. It is really an operational one, and the constraints below are what decide whether your list works as one shipment or three.
It starts with the list, not the price
Send us what you need and in what quantity. We check three things against it before we quote anything: the temperature regime each item needs, the shelf life against your transit time, and the pack format against the pallet.
That check is the reason to use us rather than assemble the order yourself. A list that looks fine on a spreadsheet can be three containers in reality, and it is much cheaper to find that out now.
One temperature per container
There is no partition. Everything inside a container sits at the same temperature, so ambient, chilled and frozen goods cannot share a box. If your order spans all three, it is three shipments, and we will tell you that at quotation rather than after.
Loading from Valencia
We load from the Port of Valencia, one of the largest container ports in the Mediterranean. For the Caucasus and Central Asia that gives sea routing to the Black Sea and onward road and rail, which is why transit to Georgia and Ukraine is materially shorter than to Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan.
Lead times
Order to shipment depends on the products and the logistics, and we give you a date before you commit rather than a general promise here. What drives it is whether items are produced to order, whether the load is collecting from several factories, and how long the certificate set takes for your destination. Alcohol is always the slowest, because of the excise regime.
We do not ship part loads. The minimum is a full container, and that is the trade for being able to mix twenty manufacturers inside it. If you cannot fill one alone, the usual answer is to widen the assortment rather than reduce the volume, and we will help you build that list.
Incoterms
The four bases most of our orders use
We can work on any Incoterms basis. These are the ones that actually come up, and the difference between them is who does the work and where the risk transfers, not just who pays.
EXW, ex works
You take over at the factory gate. Cheapest headline price and the most work on your side, including the export formalities.
FOB Valencia
We deliver to the port and handle export clearance. You take over from the ship's rail. The most common basis for our container buyers.
CIF destination port
We arrange and pay the sea freight and insurance to your named port. Simplest to compare against other quotes because more is inside the number.
DAP, delivered at place
We deliver to a named place in your country. You handle import clearance and duties. Used where the routing is road or rail rather than sea.
Container types
What your goods travel in
The temperature regime decides the box, and the box decides a large part of the cost. This is worth settling before anything else in the order.
- Standard dry container, 20 ft and 40 ftAmbient goods: juice, soft drinks, snacks, plant-based drinks, wine, olive oil, sauces, coffee, UHT milk, equipment. The cheapest option and the one most first orders use.
- Reefer, chilledSet to the range the goods need. Meat and charcuterie, cheese, yoghurt and butter. These load together, which is why most chilled containers carry both meat and dairy.
- Reefer, frozen at minus 18Frozen burgers, sandwiches and wraps. Nothing chilled or ambient can share the box, because the whole container runs at one temperature.
- High cubeExtra internal height. Worth it for light bulky goods such as bagged snacks or cartoned drinks, where you run out of space long before you run out of weight.
Start here
Send us the list and the destination country
A product list and a destination country are enough for a loading plan, the documents your border will want, and a price.