temperature-sensitive cargo Archives

Banana Logistics – 9000km to your Basket

Posted on 6 August, 20258 August, 2025 by David Priestman

Bananas – the most popular fruit in European supermarkets – often travel over 9,000 kilometers and spend nearly a month in transit before reaching our shelves. To arrive fresh, ripe, and affordable, they rely on tightly controlled logistics from farm to store.

From ripening chambers in Rotterdam to refrigerated containers crossing the Atlantic, Girteka Logistics experts explain what it takes to bring exotic fruits like bananas and avocados to tables across Europe.
How Long Does It Take for Bananas to Reach the Stores in Europe?

The time it takes for fruit to reach Europe depends largely on its country of origin. Oranges grown in Spain may arrive in neighbouring markets within a week or even less. But for bananas and avocados sourced from Central or South America, the journey can stretch up to 30 days. Shipments from Asia take even longer — up to a month and a half.

According to Vytautas Oleškevičius, Central European Regional Manager at Girteka, each fruit’s journey involves numerous steps and players along the way. “Avocados are a great example,” he says. “Europe consumes over 1.1 million tonnes of avocados each year. They’re typically grown on small farms, where the growers sell them to exporters. The exporters wash and prepare them for sale, then importers handle logistics to bring the fruit to Europe. Only after all customs procedures are completed do European resellers step in, buying the needed quantities and asking us to transport them.”

Exotic fruits aren’t the only items crossing continents. If you take a closer look at product labels, you’ll find that even vegetables such as carrots, cucumbers, or potatoes can be imported from outside the EU. What may be more surprising is the scale of fruit logistics – in 2024 alone, Girteka transported over 7,000 tons of watermelons across Europe — the equivalent of more than 300 fully loaded trucks.

Keeping Fruit Fresh Across Continents

The journey of bananas from South America to store shelves in Europe requires highly coordinated work involving farmers, suppliers, and logistics companies. Girteka has already delivered over 14,000 truckloads of fruit to 30 European countries this year — more than 300,000 tons. The challenge is not just distance, but maintaining exact transport conditions. Even minor temperature changes can affect fruit quality.

“Our job is to assess and manage all potential risks,” says V. Oleškevičius. “For example, there’s always the risk of pallets or boxes being damaged at some transfer point. Customs inspections must also be considered, and some delays are out of our control. Containers sometimes have to wait three or four days due to heavy traffic. We call these the ‘known unknowns.’ Identifying them helps us address the challenges more effectively.”

It starts in Rotterdam

Most exotic fruit arrives at Rotterdam — Europe’s largest port, handling 400 million tons of cargo annually. Here, companies like Girteka take over. Fruits are sent to logistics centres and loaded onto refrigerated trucks driven across the continent. Even before this, the fruits are already being prepared for the final consumer. On ships, they are kept in containers with temperatures close to zero degrees Celsius.

“Bananas are usually cut while still completely green — totally inedible at that stage,” – says Mantas Briedis, a sales manager at Girteka Logistics. “They must remain unripe throughout the Atlantic journey, or they’d spoil before reaching Lithuania. In Rotterdam, importers place them in ripening chambers. The ripening process continues in the truck, and by the time the truck reaches the stores, the bananas are almost fully ripe.”

What’s Easy vs. What’s Difficult to Transport?

According to experts, the complexity of the process depends on the type of fruit. Fruits vary significantly in sensitivity. Bananas and avocados are relatively easy to transport, which explains their global popularity. Berries, on the other hand, are much more delicate and require highly responsible logistics operations.

“One of the products we transport from Peru is blueberries,” M. Briedis explains. “They’re very delicate, so maintaining the right temperature is an added challenge we take seriously. Because berries spoil faster, they are often flown to Europe rather than shipped. Citrus fruits are also tricky — they’re highly sensitive to condensation. If moisture builds up, the fruit starts to rot.”

In such cases, speed and precision become critical. Drivers play an essential role, ensuring temperature-sensitive cargo is delivered as quickly and safely as possible to prevent spoilage and waste.

The Silent Success of Fruit Logistics

Despite the complexity and numerous risk factors, modern logistics chains operate with remarkable efficiency. Today, it’s almost unimaginable that a store in in any European country would run out of bananas. “The fact that consumers don’t even think about how exotic fruits reach them is the best proof of how smoothly the whole process works,” says Girteka’s logistics expert Mantas Briedis.

Behind every banana, avocado, or box of blueberries is a sophisticated network of farmers, exporters, customs brokers, logistics planners, and drivers working in sync. Their coordination ensures that even fruits grown thousands of kilometers away arrive ripe, fresh, and ready to eat — right when we expect them to.

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Extreme Heat puts Supply Chains Under Pressure

Posted on 24 July, 20257 August, 2025 by David Priestman

As Europe is experiencing extreme heat it is essential that supply chains, especially those handling temperature-sensitive goods, face multifaceted pressures on infrastructure, vehicles, and workforce. Let‘s explore these mounting challenges and outline vital adaptation strategies.

The Accelerating Trend of Heatwaves in Europe

Europe is warming at roughly twice the global average, a critical shift requiring integration into long-term supply chain planning. The summer of 2025 has already seen significant heatwaves, with southern European temperatures regularly topping 40°C. Following 2024, 2025 is projected to be the second hottest year on record, with temperatures like Portugal’s 46.6°C already broken. By 2050, intensely hot days in major European cities, home to over 70% of the population, could more than triple, severely challenging urban logistics.

The Indispensable Role of Road Transport in the European Supply Chain

Road freight transport remains an indispensable backbone of the European economy. In 2024, EU road freight reached 1,869 billion tonne-kilometres, a 0.6% increase from 2023, reflecting consistent demand across vital supply chains like food and agriculture. Poland led EU road freight in 2024 with nearly 20% (368 billion tonne-kilometres), followed by Germany, Spain, France, and Italy, together accounting for 67%. Within the specialized domain of cold chain logistics, road transport is the most frequently utilized mode, particularly for short to mid-range distances. Refrigerated trucks and vans are essential for direct deliveries to stores, distribution centres, and even directly to consumers, facilitating critical last-mile deliveries for perishable goods across Europe.

Fragility of Temperature-Sensitive Goods

Temperature-sensitive goods encompass a broad spectrum of products vital to daily life and industry. These include fresh produce, pharmaceuticals, and biological products, which are inherently perishable and require stringent temperature and humidity control from origin to destination. For instance, avocados need 6°C, blueberries 1°C, and bananas 16°C. Even minor ‘temperature excursions’ can cause significant spoilage and safety risks; a mere 1°C increase at low temperatures can halve a product’s shelf life. Fresh produce has little buffer time, making it highly vulnerable to temperature-induced disruptions. This inherent fragility highlights the critical need for robust cold chain management in a warming climate.

The Direct Impact of Heatwaves on European Road Transport

1. Road Infrastructure Degradation

Prolonged high temperatures severely degrade European road surfaces. Asphalt can melt under intense heat and the continuous stress of heavy traffic, particularly from trucks with a maximum allowable mass of up to 40 tons. Concrete slabs also expand and buckle. These heat-induced deformities create safety risks, damage vehicle suspension, and cause widespread delays, undermining resilient transportation networks. Recognizing this vulnerability, EU climate adaptation policies for 2023-2025 mandate resilience upgrades for critical infrastructure, including roads. Broader estimates suggest the EU needs roughly €260 billion in climate-related investments annually by 2030 for sectors like energy, transport, buildings, etc.

2. Driver Health and Productivity

Heat stress significantly impairs driver productivity and elevates accident risk, a known occupational hazard. Most professional drivers experience fatigue, largely due to heat and poor in-vehicle cooling. This directly reduces concentration, increasing accident likelihood. Such harsh working conditions worsen Europe’s truck driver shortage, which stood at 233,000 unfilled jobs in 2024 and could reach 745,000 by 2028, making talent recruitment and retention even harder.

3. Vehicle Performance and Breakdowns

Soaring temperatures in Europe are causing more vehicle breakdowns, particularly for older trucks prone to overheating and mechanical failures, leading to delivery delays. This extreme heat also drastically increases maintenance needs — stressing cooling systems, accelerating tire wear, and fatiguing components — which elevates operating costs and strains schedules. This mounting burden means investing in newer, heat-resilient vehicles is no longer just a sustainability goal but a critical necessity for logistics companies to maintain operational reliability and cost control. To address this growing risk, some logistics companies are proactively investing in newer, heat-resilient fleets. For example, Girteka Logistics operates a modern fleet of 6,000 fuel-efficient Euro 6 trucks, with an average age of just 2.5 years. These vehicles are equipped with integrated CO₂-reduction technologies, advanced safety systems, and telematics for real-time performance monitoring — ensuring greater resilience during extreme weather and supporting operational reliability.

Operational Disruptions and Economic Costs of Extreme Heat

Extreme heat fundamentally short circuits and wears down transport systems, leading to intricate interdependencies across various supply chain segments. Transportation disruptions manifest in multiple forms, including rail service interruptions due to mudslides (e.g., the Paris-Milan route) and critically low water levels in major commercial waterways like Germany’s Rhine River, which force barges to operate at only 40-50% capacity. This significantly inflates freight costs and impedes the transport of commodities, frequently rerouting traffic to already strained road networks. The 2025 heatwave is estimated to reduce European economic growth by 0.5 percentage points of GDP, a disruption comparable to half a day of strikes for each day with temperatures exceeding 32°C. Southern European countries, such as Spain, faced even higher losses, with an estimated 1.4% reduction in GDP. ECB research (July 2025) confirms heatwaves’ prolonged negative effect on regional economic activity, with output 1.5% lower after two years.

Despite a general decline in European road freight spot rates in Q1 2025 (due to subdued demand and trade war uncertainties), diesel prices rose by 4.8% (Q1 2024 vs. Q4 2024), maintaining a high-cost base for carriers. Extreme heat disrupts manufacturing and supply chains, burdens logistics, and exposes companies to volatile power prices, driven by the surge in electricity demand for cooling. Without resilient cooling infrastructure and reliable energy supplies, Europe’s industrial transition risks stalling.

Heatwaves are transitioning from temporary disruptions to persistent, systemic economic shocks, demanding a fundamental, long-term strategic re-evaluation of supply chain models. Their economic impacts, including GDP reductions and increased operational costs, are prolonged and intensifying, creating complex interdependencies across sectors like transport, agriculture, energy, and tourism (e.g., low river levels rerouting freight to heat-vulnerable roads). The cumulative effect of infrastructure damage, diminished labor productivity, and elevated operational costs fundamentally alter the logistics economic landscape. This necessitates a proactive, long-term perspective from businesses and policymakers, including comprehensive climate resilience planning, multi-modal transport redundancy, and seasonal inventory buffers. Without such planning, companies face costly reactive decisions like premium transport rates or significant production delays.

Heat’s Toll on Temperature-Sensitive Cargo

Heatwaves, especially during already warm summers, significantly reduce economic activity and agricultural production. In 2025, persistent drought and heat in regions like western Belgium, central France, eastern Germany, Poland, Hungary, eastern Ukraine, Türkiye, Cyprus, and the western Maghreb are severely impacting crop yields, including both spring/summer and winter crops.
The economic implications are clear: ECB research estimates that the extreme summer heat in 2022 contributed to a 0.7 percentage point increase in food prices across Europe, demonstrating a direct link between heatwaves and inflationary pressures on food.

Climate-induced agricultural losses directly translate into inflationary pressures and heightened food security concerns, elevating the efficiency of the cold chain from a mere commercial consideration to a critical societal issue. The significant reductions in agricultural yields for various crops across Europe directly impact the overall supply of fresh produce. This reduction in supply, coupled with consistent or increasing consumer demand, inevitably leads to market scarcity. This scarcity, as demonstrated by the measurable increase in European food prices following heatwaves, is further compounded by the rising operational costs within the logistics sector. The ability of the cold chain to effectively minimize post-harvest losses therefore becomes an even more crucial buffer against these climate-induced supply shocks.

Post-Harvest and In-Transit Spoilage

The total postharvest loss of horticultural crops, which includes both fruits and vegetables, ranges from 15% to 70% across various stages such as harvesting, storage, transportation, distribution and sales. Vegetables alone account for approximately 40% of this loss. This represents a substantial economic burden and contributes significantly to food waste. Poor temperature management throughout the cold chain is a primary driver of fruit quality deterioration and loss.

Adaptation strategies

1. Infrastructure Development
Significant investments are flowing into Europe’s cold chain infrastructure, including advanced refrigerated warehousing, modern transportation systems, and improved port infrastructure. The cold chain sector is rapidly professionalizing, shifting from a fragmented, low-tech industry to a strategic, technologically advanced one. This evolution is largely driven by customer demands for enhanced real-time visibility and greater transparency. Companies offering flexible, tech-enabled services are gaining a crucial competitive advantage. This transformation prioritizes operational agility to build resilience against climate disruptions and secure a stronger market position.

2. Optimized Operations and Route Planning
Leveraging predictive analytics with historical weather, real-time traffic, and precise forecasts is indispensable for logistics. AI-powered algorithms enable dynamic rerouting, helping vehicles avoid congestion, closures, and hazardous weather. This significantly reduces delivery delays, improves ETAs, lowers fuel consumption, and enhances driver safety. To adapt to these demands, some logistics companies are investing in integrated AI-based planning tools. For example, Girteka utilizes the Fleet Operator system — an AI-driven solution developed with Nexogen — to optimize route planning, fuel stops, and breaks dynamically. In case of unexpected delays or closures, the system automatically recalculates the most efficient alternative routes in real time. Paired with Fleet Planner and the Fleet Hand telematics system, this setup also helps reduce empty kilometers and ensures seamless communication between dispatchers and drivers.

“Extreme weather can disrupt road transport in unpredictable ways — from closed tunnels to rerouted traffic or sudden delays. That’s where real-time data and automation become essential. Our Fleet Operator system responds immediately, adjusting routes, fuel stops, and delivery plans in real time. With a fleet of our scale, this kind of AI-driven adaptability helps us maintain performance even when conditions change rapidly.” — Laimonas Čelkys, Head of Transport at Girteka Logistics. To mitigate the impact of heat stress on human capital and product integrity, adapting working hours to cooler parts of the day, including the implementation of night shifts, is a viable strategy for both drivers and warehouse staff. Proactive and rigorous vehicle maintenance is paramount. This includes regular engine servicing, ensuring the use of high-quality coolant, and closely monitoring engine temperature, especially in older truck models prone to overheating.

3. Policy and Regulatory Frameworks
Effective climate adaptation in European road logistics requires robust policy and regulatory frameworks. The EU Adaptation Strategy (2021) and the broader European Green Deal aim for EU climate resilience by 2050, with a key objective of a 90% reduction in transport-related greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century. The Global Cold Chain Alliance (GCCA) urges EU leaders to formally recognize temperature-controlled logistics as critical European infrastructure. This recognition is vital to unlock investment in facilities, vehicles, and specialized skills, enhancing food supply chain resilience. GCCA recommends removing investment barriers, introducing targeted incentives, and strategically expanding existing cold chain infrastructure.

4. Driver Welfare Legislation
There is a growing need for comprehensive policies specifically addressing heat stress for drivers and other logistics personnel. This could involve the implementation of stricter regulations on working conditions during heatwaves.

Adaptation Strategies: Key Recommendations

To build resilience against the escalating threats of heatwaves, strategic, multi-faceted actions are crucial for Europe’s logistics sector. These key recommendations outline a path forward for businesses and policymakers:
Cold Chain Modernization: Prioritize investment in advanced refrigeration technologies for both warehousing (e.g., automated solutions) and trailers in transit (e.g., self-charging cooling, IoT monitoring).

This is crucial to boost cold chain efficiency and capacit throughout the entire supply journey.
Infrastructure Climate-Proofing: Accelerate public and private investment in heat-resistant materials and smart infrastructure to ensure transport network durability and continuity.
Human Capital Resilience: Implement comprehensive heat stress management for drivers and staff, including flexible hours (e.g., night shifts), improved in-cab cooling, and adequate rest facilities.
Integrated Data & Predictive Analytics: Mandate and support widespread adoption of AI-powered route optimization using real-time weather and traffic data to minimize heat-induced disruptions.
Holistic EU Cooling Strategy: Develop an EU-level cooling strategy integrating energy security and climate adaptation, setting efficiency standards, and incentivizing clean, reliable cooling solutions.
Cross-Sectoral Collaboration: Foster strong collaboration among policymakers, logistics, agriculture, and tech sectors to implement systemic, long-term solutions for climate-resilient logistics.

Ultimately, while the road ahead is challenging, a proactive and aligned strategic adaptation is not just crucial but offers the tangible hope for safeguarding Europe’s vital supply chains in an increasingly hotter future.

Shipping Line Enters Refrigerated Trade with PrimeLINE Units

Posted on 24 June, 202429 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Expanding its refrigerated container capabilities, Emirates Shipping Line (ESL) has acquired 300 Carrier Transicold PrimeLINE® container refrigeration units.

“We are excited about this in-fleeting and are confident that Carrier Transicold’s PrimeLINE units will help us create optimal solutions for our customers who ship temperature-sensitive cargo,” said Caesar Yiu, Head of Container Management at ESL. “In order to ensure our customers’ cargo quality is always maintained, pulldown, temperature control and unit reliability were our key considerations when choosing the units.”

“We are very pleased that ESL is expanding its shipping operations with PrimeLINE units, which have a long-standing reputation for strong industry adoption and a value proposition that includes high capacity, rapid pulldown, tight temperature control, high air-flow performance and excellent cost of ownership,” says Leow Eng Meng, Director, Container Sales, Asia Pacific, Global Container Refrigeration, Carrier Transicold. “We are looking forward to supporting them for many more years to come.”

The PrimeLINE units, installed primarily on 40-foot high-cube containers, have been acquired through lease and are being deployed by ESL between the Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East and Red Sea.

Carrier Transicold helps improve transport and shipping of temperature-controlled cargoes with a complete line of equipment and services for refrigerated transport and cold chain visibility. For more than 50 years, Carrier Transicold has been providing customers around the world with advanced, energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable container refrigeration systems and generator sets, direct-drive and diesel truck units, and trailer refrigeration systems. Carrier Transicold is part of Carrier Global Corporation (NYSE: CARR), a global supplier of intelligent climate and energy solutions.

Maersk Line Adds 12,900 PrimeLINE® Units from Carrier Transicold