NEW ZEALAND - January 22 marks the start of Chinese New Year, and Zespri™ is helping consumers in China with their festivities thanks to its first-ever Italian reefer charter vessel. Recently, the ship completed its maiden voyage, delivering over 4,000 pallets of Italian-grown SunGold Kiwifruit to customers in China.

“We first started this process in 2018, with the ambition of establishing a more efficient manner of transporting fruit from our Northern Hemisphere growing regions to our growing customer base in China,” said Nick Kirton, Zespri Executive Officer – Northern Hemisphere Supply. “We could see the benefits shorter transit times and better temperature management across a single ship rather than multiple containers could bring in terms of improving fruit quality, with a charter vessel service also offering greater certainty at a time when we continue to see congestion and delays within the global shipping container market.”

The Baltic Performer reefer vessel departed the Port of Vado Ligure at the end of November from the dock of the Reefer Terminal, one of the largest fruit logistics hubs in the Mediterranean. According to a release, it safely arrived in the Port of Shanghai on December 22. This three-week travel window effectively halves the transit time of container shipments from Italy to China.

This successful voyage marks a significant milestone for the European kiwifruit industry, helping Italian grower partners deliver fruit more efficiently to customers. A vital part of the direct service was the support of the Italian industry through CSO Italy and Fruitimprese, as well as the effort of the Italian Phytosanitary Service, which established a new protocol to enable charter vessels to export kiwifruit from Italy.

“There’s been a huge amount of work put into creating this new service over the last four years, and we’d like to particularly thank our shipping and logistics partners in Italy—Cool Carriers, the Reefer Terminal in Vado, Tramaco, and FRESCO—as well as in China—Shanghai South Port and Sinotrans PFS—and officials from both countries who helped establish a new Protocol to support and implement this new direct service,” added Kirton. “While the Protocol itself was approved in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed its implementation, with the Baltic Performer the first international fruit charter to enter under the new protocol.”

Moving forward, Zespri looks forward to more successful charter vessels delivering Northern Hemisphere fruit directly to Asia.

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As Zespri continues to fine-tune this export process, AndNowUKnow will deliver the latest updates.

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