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estimate, although covered space appears
to be in the region of 9,000 metres An
additional external covered storage area of
13,000 metres2 is rented in the 's-Her-
togenbosch district, but this is used for
export and home stocking.
Record container stuffing time by one
loader using a fork-lift truck ats-Hertogen-
bosch is nine minutes, and for palletised
cartons loading time for a 35-box or
40-footer varies between 9 and 15
minutes. Because of the by now familiar
problem of not being able to stack one
pallet layer on top of another in
containers, Heineken prefers to use
40-footers whenever possible. For the
individual man-handling of unpalletised
cartons into 20-footers five man working
hours have to be allowed. Even so, the
bulk of movements to the important
Canadian market consists of 20-footers,
for which a lump-sum-per-box freight rate
applies.
From 70 up to 100 cartons, each
containing 24 cans or bottles, are stacked
on a 100 x 120 cms standard pallet. For all
deepsea destinations other than the US 21
pallets are loaded into a 40-footer, but for
the US only, the pallet loading factor is
restricted to 19, because of highway
regulations. Stacked weight of a pallet is
about 1,000 kilos.
The weight factors achieved vary accor
ding to the construction of any container,
but Heineken reckons to load 20-footers
with an average of 18 tonnes. It comes
perhaps as something of a surprise to learn
that on occasions reefers are used for
winter shipments to Canada, to ensure that
beer is kept above freezing point.
Two brands of lager, Heineken and
Amstel, are brewed in the Netherlands,
and the company has a significant interest
in breweries in Singapore, from where
Heineken and Amstel are shipped to other
areas of the Far and Mid-East. Container
movements through Singapore are
edging-up towards the 1,000 per year
level, and Heineken reports little difficulty
in obtaining box capacity from Singapore to
the Mid-East. Container shipments from
the Netherlands are made to all US ports,
to the Canadian east and west coasts, to
central and Latin America, the Caribbean,
Australasia and Africa.
Standing completely on its own forwar
ding feet. Heineken deals direct with
carriers and liner agents, and is so familiar
with the beer shipping trade that it is quite
capable of negotiating rates on the basis of
its considerable expertise.
Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Antwerp are
Heineken's exit ports, according to the
availability of sailings. Heineken prefers
not to commit itself to signing conference
contracts, but prefers to place most of its
shipments with conference lines.
Roll out the barrel
At first sight an investigator into the beer
shipping scene would probably not expect
that a large-scale beer shipper such as
Heineken would consider it worthwhile to
ship the draught variety of the beverage in
steel barrels across the North Atlantic, and
to bear the cost of shipping them back
empty to its Dutch breweries. This is
exactly what Heineken does for the US
market only. Notwithstanding the cost,
the process is partly justified on marketing
grounds because Heineken feels that its
brands are so well known in the US that it
is advantageous to consolidate its sales of
bottled and canned lagers by ensuring that
its own draught beer is also available to
American consumers.
The nationwide marketing and distribu
tion system created by a Dutchman, Leo
van Munching, who is the sole Heineken
importer into the US, is so strong that it is
capable of coping with tasks such as
quality control and cleansing which arise
when beer is delivered to retailers in
barrels. Each full barrel weighs 65 kilos.
Environmentalists please note, the old-
fashioned barrel avoids the need for piles
of throw-away packaging.
Overall the container is playing a vital role
in the distribution of beer, and the
continuing upturn in the popularity
throughout the world of Continental-type
lager is certain to generate a rising graph
of cargo for carriers. In the case of
breweries such as Heineken, whose beers
have taken the No 1 spot in imported
beer into the US, there is little doubt that
their achievement in introducing
European-brewed beers into foreign
markets rests to a large extent on the
efficacy of distribution methods geared to
large-scale container movements.
