Driving the economic engines

“We already have a tremendous amount of warehousing around the ports breaking loads and restuffing containers and moving them forward,” he says. “In the US, a domestic truck size is 48 or 53 foot, much larger than a 40 ft container. You can take two 40-fts and put them almost into one 53-ft and reduce costs because you are driving one load. We don’t call it portcentric – we just call it stripping and breaking, it is the same concept.

“It used to be that way before you had the container; it was the only way you could move cargo, unloading it from the ship and taking it into the warehouse.

“With the advent of containers, people asked why they needed to have that transfer facility at the port when they could extend that to a particular destination. But what has happened is that the increasing information flow and transparency of supply chains has made it possible for people to be more aggressive in managing their supply chains. Retailers can see they can gain more flexibility by stripping the container at the port and rebuilding loads for specific destinations. In that context, we are going back to the old model.”

There are drawbacks, however; for example, if containers are emptied at the port, then there could be a shortage of boxes going into the hinterland for export loads. “For example, in Scotland there are not enough containers for the export of whisky; they have to pay for containers to come in,” says Mr Lambert.

The portcentric principle also works for non-containerised goods. For example, WestBank Timber, said to be the largest fencing importer/wholesaler in the UK, has located one of its facilities in Howden Port, to give it easier access to customers in northern England.

Portcentric contracts can also demand new skills from port workers. Tetley brings all of its UK raw tea imports through the Port of Tyne – adding up to more than 3,600 teu a year.

The port unloads the containers and stores the tea in its warehousing. The various teas are then taken in full loads to Tetley’s nearby factory for blending and packing into tea bags, etc.

Before moving to the Tyne, Tetley had used an established tea warehousing company. Tea must be stored very carefully – it needs a constant temperature, or it can gain moisture or dry out. Tetley worked with the port’s warehousing team to explain the rights and wrongs of storing tea and has acknowledged that the team has developed “a remarkable level of skills and knowledge in handling tea”.