"Due to the long shipments and the uncertainty on grounds of reliability, with only 70% of shipments arriving on time for most routes, it has become necessary to take different shipping methods into account: specialised reefer ships, container shipping, air freight, etc., all of which have pros and cons. The use of container ships has been more a question of price, much lower than air freight, while air freight is still the best option for fast shipments,“ explains Damas.
"All in all, if you want service flexibility, if you want to control the schedule, specialised reefer services are the better match, but for container shipping we must not forget there’s a lot of investment going to technology, such as controlled-atmosphere, which can extend the shelf life of the product. With containers, you also get a much greater capacity.”
Trends are consequently favouring exchange. “Seatrade, the largest specialised reefer operator, has invested in fully cellular container ships, while container operators have been moving towards the specialised reefer model, but the choice is still usually down to capacity. With the lower availability of specialised reefers, exporters are moving more towards container ships.”
As a result, the share of specialised reefer ships in global shipping is actually expected to drop from about 23% today to 19% in 2018. “Not only Seatrade, but the entire specialised reefer sector believes more on container ships. In absolute terms, this entails that reefer volumes shipped by container will increase dramatically, while those by specialised reefer ships will not crash, but will certainly decline,” concludes Damas.