General

Friday, 27 November 2015 17:37 |

FDA IMPLEMENTS NEW IMPORT FOOD SAFETY RULES

The Food and Drug Administration has issued new rules establishing enforceable safety standards for produce farms to prevent foodborne illness and make importers accountable for verifying that imported food meets U.S. safety standards.

Under the Foreign Supplier Verification Program, food importers must verify that foreign suppliers are producing food in a manner consistent with U.S. safety standards and that they are achieving the same level of food safety as domestic farms and food facilities. Verification measures include conducting audits of a supplier’s facility, sampling and testing of food, or a review of the supplier’s relevant food safety records based on risks linked to the imported food and the performance of the foreign supplier.

The FDA also finalized a rule on accredited third-party certification. The FDA can require in certain circumstances that a food offered for import be accompanied by a certification from an accredited third-party certification body.

For more information, please consult: http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/FSMA/ucm334115.htm

Monday, 16 November 2015 12:02 |

COUNTRY RISK ASSESSMENT & BUSINESS CLIMATE IN 2015

Friday, 25 September 2015 17:17 |

NEWS ABOUT THE EUROPEAN HARVESTS

This year the harvests started earlier than usual in most of the European vineyards.

The quality of the wine is expected to be excellent due to the long heat wave in Europe this summer.

In France, the harvests started at the end of August in southern regions and quickly spread across the whole country which was unusual for the Beaujolais and Burgundy regions. The volume is estimated at 46.5 MHL on a par with 2014. Northern vineyards should produce less, in Alsace -2%, Beaujolais -25%, Burgundy -11% and Champagne -11% while the Southern ones should produce higher volumes such as the Languedoc region +6%.

Germany also started earlier and may have lower volume than last year following a summer drought, it should be less than the ten-year average which amounts to 9.1 MHL

Italy should be good in both quality and quantity, especially for red wines. The total harvests should amount to 46.3 MHL. Except Tuscany which will be down by 5%, all other major vineyards in Italy should increase : +5% Abruzzo and Emilia Romagna, +10% Friuli VG, Piedmont, Sicily and Veneto, +15% Lazio Umbria and +25% Puglia.

Spain should also record a good year for quality but maybe less in quantity after the summer heat wave. The total production should not go over 44 MHL like the year before. The reduction is mainly in Ribera del Duero, Extremadura and Valenciana while Rioja, Galicia, Aragon, Cataluna and Navarra enjoy more volume.

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Transportation insurance

Shipping containers through oceans has been a success over the decades. It’s so efficient that we forget the natural environment can be really tough and damageable. Fortunately incidents occur very rarely but when it occurs it can be severe like the MSC ZOE vessel in North Europe or the HAPAG-LLOYD YANTIAN EXPRESS on route to Canada. Despite they are very large container ship, till the water or weather conditions can be severe as you can read in the here joined article.

We keep on inviting you to cover your shipments with a transportation insurance. TRANSO’s one is particularly fitted for wine shipments from door to door (not only seaborne). We highly recommend you to confirm its use for each and every container you place with TRANSO.

Anyhow, we thank you for 2018 support, wishing you the best for 2019, at least a safe year.

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The container lines recent history

The shipping industry has been moving on with further concentration as here below reminded.

However, 2018 has recorded even lower scores in terms of schedule reliablity. Not only vessels are getting later but when they are late, the delay is further than the years before. With very slim global profit (when positive) carriers are reluctant to increase vessel speed for schedules recovering. Other reasons come from more and more port congestions at loading/discharge and the truck driver’s shortages in USA and also at countries of origin. Improvments would be expected and welcome but the recent performances do not support positive changes.

More than ever you can rely on TRANSO team and services to assist you for monitoring as accurately as possible the supply chain of your wine imports.

2014: Hapag-Lloyd integrated with CSAV

2015: Cosco merged with China Shipping

2016: CMA-CGM acquired APL

2017: Hapag-Lloyd integrated UASC

2017: Maersk acquired Hamburg Süd

2018: Cosco acquires OOCL

2018: ONE as a merge of K Line, MOL & NYK

Change in MED services

Both Ocean Alliance and THE Alliance services from MED to US East are merging into one single service as from early December.

The 2 existing services are deploying 4500 TEU vessels. The new one will deploy 8500 TEU vessels. The total capacity is slightly lower.

However in case of delays or blank sailings, alternative are very limited ; for instance, from FOS, there is no direct sailing alternative (only via Algeciras with Maersk or Valencia with MSC).

Carriers are announcing this is to recover from low freight rates and improve the service reliability as we have all noted less accuracy and more lead times in worldwide shipments.

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