Logistics · · 5 min
One container a season
Why we ship by sea, twice a year, and what that costs us in flexibility.
We ship twice a year, by sea, and it takes 31 days from Kolkata. Air freight would take three and cost us roughly twelve times the carbon per kilo.
What sea freight really costs is flexibility. If the XL bars sell out in August there is no reordering: the next box is on the water in November, and we spend three months telling people to size down.
Why we keep doing it
Because the alternative is worse in every way that matters, and because a shortage is honest information. When a size runs out we say so on the product page rather than quietly swapping in leaf or milk from somewhere else.
A stock-out is the price of not having a second supplier we do not know.
Marijke de Vries
Buying and logistics in Rotterdam. Nine years importing coffee before this.
Next in the journal
Brewing green tea at altitude