The awkward middle of importing is the buyer whose total volume justifies a container but whose volume per product does not. Sending four separate part-loads is expensive. Waiting until one product reaches container volume ties up cash and leaves you short on the other three.
The answer is a mixed load: several products stuffed into one container, under one bill of lading and one set of documents.
Why it is cheaper than the alternative
Less-than-container-load freight is priced per cubic metre and carries handling at both ends, plus consolidation and deconsolidation. A full container is priced as a box regardless of what is in it. Once you have enough total volume, filling one box beats sending several partial ones, usually by a wide margin.
The other saving is administrative and it is easily underestimated. One shipment means one set of shipping documents, one customs entry, one insurance certificate and one payment instrument rather than four of each.
What has to be true for it to work
The products must be compatible. Strongly aromatic goods will taint neutral ones if they are not properly barrier-packed. Dehydrated onion and garlic in particular will find their way into anything porous sharing the box.
They should want the same conditions. Products with very different moisture tolerances are awkward travelling companions, especially on a long lane through the tropics.
Weight and volume have to balance. A container has both a weight limit and a volume limit, and dense goods hit the first while bulky ones hit the second. A good mixed load pairs the two so neither is wasted — dense pulses low, light dehydrates above.
The paperwork must cover everything. Each product may need its own certificates. Consolidating the shipment does not consolidate the compliance.
How to ask for one
Send the list: product, grade, quantity, packing for each, plus your destination port and incoterm. A supplier who builds mixed loads regularly will come back with a stow plan that fills the box, tell you where you are short or over, and suggest what to adjust.
If a quote comes back priced as four separate shipments, that supplier does not really do mixed loads, whatever the website says.
The second-order benefit
Mixed loads let you test a product properly. Adding a tonne of something new to a container you were shipping anyway costs almost nothing in freight, and gives you a commercial quantity to put through your own line rather than a sample to look at. Several product lines start that way.
Products this article touches on:
Enquiries
Bring us a specification.
The desk answers with origin options, packing and a price on your incoterm — usually inside a working day.