Starbucks is the latest retail giant to charter ships for bespoke voyages as liner shipping fails to serve its logistical needs.
Operational sources told TradeWinds the Seattle-based roaster and brewer recently found its huge US east coast roaster at York in Pennsylvania running short of beans, thanks to constraints on global liner trades.
For want of space on container ships, Starbucks went to the length of chartering a multipurpose (MPP) carrier better suited to industrial cargoes for a load of green coffee beans that different sources place at between 250 teu and 450 teu.
