Transportation of salmon gets hit as border control throughout Europe increases.
Monday extreme waiting lines occurred at borders between Austria-Italy, Denmark-Germany, Poland-Germany due to corona virus precautions. Trucks containing salmon had to wait in 6-12 kilometre long lines to pass borders.
“Several companies have chosen not to send drivers to the Austria-Italian border as the lines were too long,” says Frank Isaksen, seafood analyst at the Norwegian Seafood Council.
Border control at German borders:
Longer waiting periods in the coming weeks
Isaksen also confirms that other borders in Europe have been influenced with long waiting lines, but that as the control has normalised Tuesday morning and the lines are shorter.
Thermo-Transit who ships Norwegian seafood from Norway to Europe has also experienced increased waiting time.
“Yesterday the lines in and out of Denmark were catastrophic long. The line was 6-8 kilometres long. But today everything is more calm at all borders, and our drivers have crossed the borders between Spain and Italy without problems,” says Jesper Hansen, CEO for Thermo-Transit.
Jesper Hansen tells that the border into Poland Monday had 20 km long lines as border control was implemented. The company luckily had no transportation in the area. Thermo-Transit expects more waiting time in the coming weeks:
“At the moment our goods can be transported without problems again, but we expect longer waiting at borders in the coming weeks as more countries implement border control to prevent the spread of corona virus,” says Hansen.
Border control not yet a problem
Jan De Koeijer from the Dutch company Kotra Logistics say they have not had any difficulty crossing borders in Europe, and had 11 trucks into Italy with fish yesterday and 15 into Spain.
“We have no problem at the borders right now. But this is a new situation. I have never experienced anything like this before. I had to write a long letter to all my employees informing that we will probably experience less deliveries and therefore have to split out the workload, so everyone has work to do and nobody gets laid of. In the weeks to come the amount of fish from Norway will decrease, as restaurants are closed and many of our retail costumers are cancelling their orders, especially Brussels have cancelled many orders,” says Jan De Koeijer, Financial and HRM Manager at Kotra Logistics.
The company transports fish into France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. As restaurants are closed, and many people in the Netherlands are buying larger amounts of food, Jan De Koeijer expects the demand for frozen fish will grow and fresh salmon will lower dramatically.
Airlines in Scotland still operating to US
In Scotland, a spokesperson from Kuehne + Nagel UK, told Salmonbusiness that salmon farmers are scrambling to get fish out.
“Airlines are still operating flights , US citizens are still coming in and out. We still are moving shipments – we’ve been told It’s only some airlines flying again on the 24th now all. Lots are calling and asking if we have space.”
