Page 23 - Port of Hamburg | Brochure | Port of Hamburg Magazine 2.2020

EXPORT GATEWAY ■
SUPER-SECURE: A CHAIN SAW HAS MADE IT A PERFECT FIT. SCREWED FAST ON A WOODEN STRUCTURE, THE MACHINE IS PLACED ON A SPECIALLY MADE PALLET
For secure transport across the oceans
SACO Shipping organizes consolidated containers for exporting merchandise from Germany and the rest of Europe all over the world. Staff from its PCH subsidiary stuff and load separate consignments into the boxes.
When container shipping was really taking off, An- drea Briks and Harald Pahl founded SACO Shipping. “We started in 1988 with five destinations,” recalls CEO Briks. In the Port of Hamburg, the company now organizes consolidated containers directly to more than 150 ports worldwide. The idea was to act for customers with a low-volume consignment, to combine these with other separate ones, and to ship the whole lot as a full container.
SACO books containers with the shipping compa- nies, accepts consignments large and small from customers at its Hamburg base, then sorts these by destination and despatches them by sea. At the des- tination port, one of SACO’s own agents takes over the container. “The same thing happens there as
here on the import side. Containers are emptied and individual consignments made available to custom- ers,” says Briks.
That sounds simple, but the organizational effort be- hind it is considerable. Appointments and capacities must be coordinated and observed; all documents held in readiness for customs, environmental and veterinary agencies; regulations observed; and con- signments large and small given seaworthy packing. Those to the USA, for example, must be previously notified, and can only be processed once confirma- tion is received from the US authorities. “We need to be extremely flexible, since a lot of changes occur during the run-up, which can sometimes last two or three weeks,” explains the CEO.
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© Nicole de Jong