March 2012 C&CI • Shipping & Warehousing • 15 Record cargo of cocoa at
Port of Philadelphia Philadelphia Regional Port Authority’s dedicated cocoa-handling facility at Pier 84 is no stranger to shipments of cocoa, and has regularly broken records for the size of shipments it receives. This happened again in January 2012, when Pacific Tramp arrived at Pier 84 with a load of 19,328 tonnes of cocoa (293,755 bags), which was a record for the facility and for the US. Port officials say the record shipment highlights the recent upward trend in cocoa cargoes at Port of Philadelphia. The total amount of cocoa handled at port in 2011 was up by 26 per cent compared to 2010.
Berthed at Pier 84 for the several days, the vessel took a while to discharge its cargo. Pacific Tramp is a newly-built vessel chartered by the Hamburg- based logistics company Unicargo. Its cargo originated in Côte d’Ivoire at the ports of Abidjan and San Pedro. The final destination for the cocoa on board will be grinders and processors throughout the Philadelphia region and beyond.
A sizable portion of the vessel’s cargo was destined for Barry Callebaut, the well-known manufacturer of cocoa and chocolate products, who have a facility just outside Philadelphia in Eddystone, Pennsylvania. Several representatives of the company visited the vessel to witness the discharge operation, and met with officials from the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority (PRPA), which owns Pier 84, and Dependable Distribution Services (DDS), which operates Pier 84.
Safmarine
launches Android e-Shipping Application
A screen shot from the Safmarine Android App
The release of a new shipping application for all mobile devices using the Android operating sys- tem will allow Safmarine customers to access and download essential shipping information from the devices, anywhere and at any time of day. The launch of the application follows the release, in April 2011, of a similar e-Business application for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices.
Port of Philadelphia’s record-breaking cargo of cocoa originated in Côte d’Ivoire
Dependable Distribution Services is a leading handler of cocoa beans and cocoa products in the Philadelphia region, offering a variety of value-added services in addition to its primary discharge operations at Pier 84. That fact, coupled with Pier 84’s close proximity to the region’s many chocolate manu- facturers and cocoa processors, makes it a major force in the region and the first choice among many shippers and receivers of cocoa beans. The port said that Barry Callebaut plans to expand its facility at Eddystone as part of its effort to more efficiently serve both the regional artisan/chef trade as well as more traditional food manufacturers.
Another regional customer receiving a large amount of cocoa brought into the US on the ship was Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in Hazelton, Pennsylvania. Well-known as a producer of cocoa ingredients, ADM’s cocoa processing and chocolate manufacturing facility in Hazelton became fully active in 2010. For Unicargo’s Olaf Dimter, the person credited with putting together this record-breaking shipment, the discharge operation at Pier 84 was the final piece of a logistics puzzle that began weeks before in Africa. "I personally witnessed much of the loading operation in Côte d’Ivoire and was pleased with the care taken as the cargo was loaded," he explained. "I was equally pleased when briefed on the care and efficiency of the discharge operation at the Port of Philadelphia."
Benoît Lebrun, Safmarine’s Global e-Business Manager, said: "Android has become an increas- ingly popular platform for many of the mobile devices used by our customers and the launch of this new application will further improve our cus- tomers’ access and experience with Safmarine by making it even easier for our customers to do business with us, no matter where they are." The new application allows Safmarine cus- tomers to look up sailing schedules, track con- tainers or consignments (using a booking or con- tainer number), find contact details for Safmarine offices and receive Safmarine news updates. An ‘alert’ option has also been added, which ‘push- es’ the information directly to the users’ device. Mr Lebrun says the Safmarine Android appli- cation can be downloaded free of charge from the Android Market. By registering an email address, the new application also allows users to receive details on future updates. Mr Lebrun said Safmarine has also noted increased usage of its mobile website,
http://m.safmarine.com, which can be easily accessed from any mobile device. "The increased use of this site reconfirms the growing popularity of mobile devices in the ship- ping business," he concluded.
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