MAERSK SEALAND has embarked on a reefer expansion programme which calls for the building of thousands of new 40-foot high cubes, the majority Controlled Atmosphere (CA) compatible, at the company's Denmark plant and mainly 20-footers and dry general purpose (GP) containers at its two factories in China.
Dirk Hoffmann, Maersk Sealand's newly-appointed national reefer sales manager, told this correspondent that marketing strategy, in part, called for what he termed the mixing of perishables so as to allow for a stretching of seasons.
This means in effect that if one commodity, say grapes, drops off others, like pears or apples could follow, thereby ensuring continuity.
Hoffmann said the company was using both its own Star Fresh CA and TransFresh CA technology and gave the assurance that supply was sufficient to meet ever-increasing demand.
Another service on which Maersk Sealand hopes to capitalise further is the availability to foreign fishing companies of 'super-freezer' containers capable of freezing the highly sought after tuna to minus 60C.
Also new for fish exports is the 'stuffy' and the 'sortie', converted containers which allow fish to be loaded directly from a vessel and then into super-freezer and other reefers.
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