Sarah Bretz, ContributorMSC Cruises and Explora Journeys have linked up with their sister company MSC, the world leader in container shipping, to use smart containers. These help guarantee that the freshest produce is loaded onto the lines’ ships after delivery from a warehouse.
Each smart container is fitted with internet connected devices to collect data such as position, temperature, and humidity, and monitored remotely around the clock from a centralized Customer Service Centre in Antwerp, Belgium.
A problem in transit during the transportation of goods by road or sea triggers an alert to the supplier that can then be resolved en route to ensure that food products that depend on the exact environment for freshness can be delivered without having to send out a costly replacement.
The smart containers are particularly beneficial for chilled and frozen goods such as meat, seafood, and dairy produce.
MSC Cruises and Explora Journeys both source most of their food locally — some 96 percent — but in the event of a product not being available locally, goods are taken to ships from a series of warehouses around the world.
From the northern Italian warehouse in Genoa, last year MSC Cruises used smart containers and saw an improved level of quality assurance vs. in 2022, when the line used traditional means of transporting food by road and sea.
The scale of the overall food delivery operation is large. Every year, MSC Cruises’ fleet of 22 ships is stocked with 5,500 different items of food and beverage, including 32 million eggs, six million litres of milk, 170,000 oysters, two million tomatoes, 900,000 kg of apples, and 800,000 kg of lemons.
“The use of smart containers has made a significant positive impact on the supply of food, especially in markets where it is a challenge to source and acquire all of the products locally,” said Paolo Raia, Managing Director of MSC Procurement & Logistics.
“Another major advantage with smart containers is that in real time we can constantly monitor the humidity and temperature of the goods being transported and change the parameters in transit, if required, to deliver with absolute confidence the freshest and finest food for our guests.”
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