12 arm of largest


Logistics clearance


is agent,


Issue 7 2019 - FBJ Toga Freight is everyone’s favourite


For years, Toga Logistics led a quiet existence as the customs clearance


Dublin-


based groupage operator Toga Freight until, one day, the Brexit referendum happened. Suddenly everybody wanted to be its best friend. It wasn’t until around March


that the reality of Brexit kicked in with the trade, says Robert Dickinson when, as he says, “the phones started to ring off the hook”. Toga


Ireland’s with


17% of what has been up to now a fairly small market of 1-2 million clearances a year. It has all the necessary soſtware to do clearances quickly and efficiently, but capacity is finite. The priority has to be Toga’s existing customer base, including the sister company’s 7,000 groupage trailers a year between the UK and Ireland. “We’re spent a lot of time ensuring that our existing customers are in a healthy position and indeed the majority are all set.” Toga will take on new


business, but it will need to be selective. Ideally, there needs to be some synergy with existing business. Brexit has certainly set the cat


among the pigeons in the UK/ Ireland trade.


Dickinson says


that some clients have already stopped supplying Ireland while others have started to move from frequent small parcel deliveries to less frequent whole pallets. The freight industry has had to prepare too, by taking on


additional staff. Toga now has a 20-strong customs department but if the UK crashes out with a hard Brexit, it might need another eight or so. From a logistics industry point


of view, 31 October isn’t an ideal date for Brexit as it coincides with the start of the Christmas rush but Ireland has been very proactive in preparing, as has Toga Logistics. “We’ve done dummy runs with customers, telling them whether the documentation they submitted would be sufficient post-Brexit. And I think our customers appreciate the investment we have made, in staff and soſtware.” Toga Freight has a ‘Plan B’


to load Ireland and Northern Ireland freight on separate trailers, should it be necessary, diverting Northern Ireland traffic away from Dublin and consolidating it somewhere like Manchester instead. In the early stages of Brexit, a day or so might be added to transit times and just-in-time delivery may have to take a back seat for a while, but Dickinson believes that most of his customers are as well prepared as they can be. He is also advising customers of food or pharma goods subject to SPS checks to consider shipping them as small parcels rather than groupage. Besides Toga Logistics, there


are a couple of other large customs clearance


agents in


Ireland but not all of them are taking on new business. There is also a severe shortage of bonded warehousing, says Dickinson.


The Revenue department stopped issuing new bonds about two years ago as it didn’t have the staff to administer them. The Department generally


though is “well ahead of the curve,” says Dickinson and has trained or re-tasked hundreds of


staff, as well as carrying


out detailed planning. It has built up a database of who is moving what freight and there are apparently already plans to reinstate border posts on the Northern Ireland border. The department still owns the land where the former post stood, although there is talk that new posts might be set up at locations well away from the actual border such as Sligo or Drogheda, places that are seen as less politically sensitive than the border areas themselves. However, no preparations,


however detailed, can explain just how the supply chain involved in preparing a pizza – which may involve half a dozen border crossings – will operate aſter Brexit. No one really seems to have


considered how other logistics services, that we have come to take for granted in the single market, will operate aſter Brexit. Post and mail could be a real headache, for example. Toga Freight, which is agent


in Ireland for the DX network in Ireland, might run different trailers for dutiable or non- dutiable


items but there


could also be the headache of collecting duty


from private


///IRELAND


Irish firm offers Germany a Brexit bypass


Dublin-based Toga Freight Services has signed a deal with Germany’s Loxx Logistics GmbH. Headquartered in


Gelsenkirchen, near Essen in the heart of the Rhine-Ruhr industrial belt, Loxx - established in 1977 - has almost 600 staff across Germany and Europe including over 370 at the Gelsenkirchen logistics hub. There are also group owned depots across Germany, Poland and Russia, as well as 250 partner companies in Germany and over 80 across Europe. However, despite having daily


connections to over 80 European towns and cities, its one missing link was Ireland – so Toga Freight has stepped in to complete the


consumers who have bought items over the internet. One solution might be for the seller to pay the duty, but if not, “it could be 1,000 calls to 1,000 customers, and the cost of warehousing to hold the goods meanwhile,” Dickinson points out.


subject to SPS checks separate from other cargo instead of mixing it in with other groupage as oſten happens at present. However, in a Brexit situation,


Overall, DSV Road’s business to and from Europe is pretty strong, says managing director Robert Greene. Brexit has affected sentiment,


of course, but


business has been increasing again lately and Greene expects this to continue “unless there is an absolute Brexit shock”. Like many other freight


and logistics companies, DSV Ireland has been preparing for a hard Brexit, giving its customers as much


information about


future requirements as possible and directing them to its Brexit ‘landing page’ on the Internet. But it has also been developing a number of robotic solutions


including systems that can scan and read paper documentation and upload them to the DSV system. Future developments will embrace Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, says Greene, meaning that the system will seek out trends and patterns in the data which could, for example, be used to pre-advise of delays. A number of tech start-ups are working with DSV to develop various concepts that are being tested in the company’s own innovation labs in the Netherlands and Israel. Greene says: “It used to be that the transport industry was


slow to adopt new technology, but that has changed totally; there are many tech start-up companies working in the sector now.” The transport and logistics


sector is appealing to innovators, he believes, “because it touches so many people”. Indeed, if any good has come out of the Brexit saga, it is that it has thrown up the importance of the supply chain in the modern economy. Brexit may necessitate


new ways of working for the industry. The


Irish Revenue


Commissioners have suggested that it may be necessary to carry foodstuffs and other goods


“a company like DSV can add a lot of value. We have customs bonds, we are used to trading with countries like Norway. And we also have a very close


relationship with our


customers.” As customs processes have


the potential to delay shipments, more space may be needed to move the same amount of cargo. Some companies might though decide to stop supplying Ireland if it proves to be too complex for a relatively small amount of business, but others may decide to transfer it to a specialist like DSV that is able to cope and which has bonded premises


network. The Irish firm’s groupage


collections from across Germany, Eastern Europe, Russia and other areas will be collected by the Loxx partner network and trunked to Gelsenkirchen daily. From there, cargo will be consolidated with all other Ireland-bound goods from the wider Loxx Group and partner network and shipped directly to the Toga Distribution Centre in Dublin, avoiding the UK. Goods will then distributed in Ireland via Toga’s own Irish delivery partner network which comprises 15 satellite depots and over 300 trucks and vans. Toga commercial director, Dickinson,


Robert said: “The turbulence around Brexit has Dickinson adds that Toga


could also offer a neat solution for any UK pallet networks that offer a service to Ireland aſter Brexit. Rather than try to get myriad customers and perhaps up to 80 members up to speed in the niceties of customs


to store anything awaiting clearance. The Northern Ireland border


promises to be one of the most difficult issues aſter Brexit, especially if no technological solution is found and the trade has to pass through physical border posts. If there have to be border posts, they may need to be well away from the trunk roads and motorways, adding further delays to cross border freight. “Any physical solutions will be disruptive,” warns Greene. DSV does in fact already


separate most of its trailers into North and South but in future traffic may have to be routed so that it only involves one or other country. Traffic heading to the North via the South might in future require transit


encouraged large logistics providers such as Loxx to develop new supply chains that avoid transiting the UK, so they came to Dublin looking for an established company to manage their distribution requirements in Ireland. At the same time, we were looking to strengthen our European connections to offer better services to our 200 or so Irish based customers. So, the working agreement has completely satisfied the requirements of both companies and we are absolutely thrilled to be working with Loxx Logistics.” Toga Group founder and


managing director Martin Gately, added: “The chaos surrounding Brexit has opened the door for us to explore numerous opportunities both inside and outside the UK. We have spent a lot of time recently advising our UK clients regarding Brexit and the future for UK to EU trade, but we have also been approached by numerous companies from Europe who are trying to avoid the UK in their supply chains. Whilst Brexit is causing huge uncertainty and concern to many companies, we are proud to have provided logistics solutions to some and operational guidance to many others.”


documentation networks


could hand over their – usually relatively small – volumes of trans-Irish Sea business to a specialist operator such as Toga Freight, which is well able to handle palletised goods in its regular groupage trailers.


documents. A technical solution to the


border issue is therefore very appealing, if one can be devised and there is no doubt that there some potential fixes, including automatic numberplate reading (ANPR) systems or geofencing linked to GPS. The issue though, says Greene, is its likely level of adoption in the transport industry and how to keep track of those firms that cannot or will not use the electronic systems. Since the Good Friday


Agreement, a huge amount of intra-Ireland trade has grown up, much of with


products


it very complex crossing


the


border multiple times as they are processed and reprocessed. Many Northern Ireland firms have bases in the Republic now,


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