Maersk Moves Indian Grapes to Europe

The global container company A.P. Moller – Maersk has started end-to-end cold chain logistics solution for its customers exporting grapes from Nashik and Sangli in India to North Europe.

With this new offering, Maersk is enabling the exporters from the region to supply high quality Indian grapes to global market and helping fetch higher returns for the farmer community in and around the Nashik district. Leveraging its variety of services throughout the supply chain, Maersk is improving the overall turnaround time to North Europe by 4 days.

Gearing up for the peak grape season and helping exporters based in Nashik, ‘The Grape Capital of India’, Maersk’s cold chain offerings go all the way from the packhouse of the exporters to the destination in North Europe.

A press release from the logistics giant said: "Maersk is thus being the one-stop-shop for its customers by offering booking management, transportation including land-based and ocean logistics and customs clearance. The movement of grapes is being done in refrigerated containers (Reefers) with Remote Container Management solution ‘Captain Peter’ that monitors atmospheric conditions inside the container and provides visibility of the same to the customers. Maersk is also deploying a Reefer technician to overlook contingencies throughout the journey.

Steve Felder, Managing Director, Maersk South Asia, said “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. 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.”

He added, “Besides grapes, the region also yields other quality agro-produce like onions, tomato, chilli, baby corn, okra and other vegetables, which has immense trade potential in the global markets. With our cold chain logistics solutions, we aim to further open-up and liberalize the agro-economy of the country enabling farmers and entrepreneurs to be a part of the international trade ecosystem.”

Maersk aims at expanding its end to end cold chain solutions across the country to tap in all the seasonal exports to eventually enable trade for the agro-based industry from India.