India Indian grapes seedless white

Maersk has announced a new service to North Europe that offers an end-to-end cold chain logistics solution for grape exporters from Nashik and Sangli.

The new service enables booking management, offers on-land and ocean transportation, cargo tracking, customs clearance amongst other services as a part of the end-to-end solution. All of this is set to improve the overall turnaround time to North Europe by four days.

The grapes will be transported in reefer containers with a remote container management solution that monitors atmospheric conditions inside the container and provides visibility of the same to the customers.

Steve Felder, managing director of Maersk South Asia, said the all-encompassing service is aimed at streamlining the shipping process for exporters.

“Nashik is a priority market for the exports of grapes from India. With our end-to-end cold chain solutions, we aim to enable the exporters to take their grapes from Nashik to North Europe with a fast turn-around time, and with more simplicity,” Felder said.

“By providing a one-stop-shop solution, we are enabling the farmers to focus on what they do best, leave the logistics to us and not get bothered by any challenges that they might face in the journey of their produce from their farms to their customers.”

Felder said Maersk hoped this development would help increase opportunities exporters of all fresh produce in India.

“Besides grapes, the region also yields other quality agro-produce like onions, tomato, chilli, baby corn, okra and other vegetables, which have immense trade potential in the global markets,” Felder

“With our cold chain logistics solutions, we aim to further open-up and liberalise the agro-economy of the country enabling farmers and entrepreneurs to be a part of the international trade ecosystem.”

Mayank Tandon, vice-president of FreshTrop, applauded Maersk’s cold chain solution and said it has plenty of potential.

“We are extremely excited about the value proposition of Maersk’s cold chain solution. As a unique proposition in the industry, it has the potential to add great value by the virtue of visibility it offers us on our cargo,” Tandon said.

“We are looking forward to serving our customers better with the tools that Maersk has placed in our hands through a single window solution for our logistic needs.”