Brewing the perfect solution with intercontinental rail services

Maersk’s intercontinental railway delivers on time amidst a global health crisis.

The background

The COVID-19 outbreak has been a costly setback for businesses around the world. Whether a multinational corporation or a small business, everyone suffered as global trade headed towards a standstill. Our customer, a pioneer in the coffee industry, also felt the effects in their logistics. . It was especially difficult since their main supplier was based out of China, at the epidemic’s earliest epicentre.

The challenge

With China under a complete lockdown for weeks, shipping and logistics were facing unprecedented uncertainty. Trucks were prohibited from running and ocean carriers were forced to declare blank sailings at extremely short notice. These left businesses stranded and forced to look for alternatives. Amidst such chaos, the customer struggled to transport their coffee machines stuck at a port in China to their markets of sale in Europe.

The solution

Given the urgency and unusual circumstances, Maersk proposed inland services such as Intercontinental Rail (ICR) solution, to move the stranded cargo along the China-Europe Railway from China to Germany. This allowed for seamless rail container tracking and reduced overall shipping costs.

ICR delivered in more ways than expected:

After careful analysis of the situation, the customer appointed Maersk rail as their go-to solution. Maersk’s ICR ticked all the boxes, not only in reliability but also speed. ICR had helped to establish a cost-effective and eco-friendly connection between the continents.

The result

We moved a total of 30,000 coffee machines for the customer on the China-Germany route. Before trialling Maersk’s ICR solution, the customer depended on ocean shipping as their primary mode of transport between China and Europe. Now they can count on ICR inland services as a reliable alternative that delivers on time without compromising on savings, speed, or environment.