Every December the same question arrives in the same week: when is the last day we can collect a chilled load and still have it on a supermarket shelf before Christmas? This year the answer is 18 December for Spain, Italy and Greece, and 22 December for France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
Why the ferries set the dates
Our trucks run to a timetable, but the Channel and Mediterranean sailings do not add capacity for the holidays, and the freight decks fill a week before they empty. A load that misses its booked sailing waits for the next one with space, and on a chilled run a day in a queue is a day off the product's shelf life.
We book our December sailings in October. By the time a client asks about Christmas, the deck space is already ours.
Nina Holloway, operations desk
What to do now
Tell your planner your December volumes as early as you can, even as an estimate. We would rather hold space we give back than turn a load away, and the price for a booked slot does not change if the numbers do.
