The MV Aotea Maersk is the biggest container ship to call in at New Zealand. Photo / John Borren
The MV Aotea Maersk is the biggest container ship to call in at New Zealand. Photo / John Borren
After together successfully exporting around $160 billion of New Zealand primary products, container freight leader Kotahi and international shipping giant Maersk have signed up to continue their 10-year partnership for another decade.
The reason is simple, the partners say: The world is in for many more supply chain disruptions inthe next 10 years and teaming up again secures New Zealand a stable, reliable, resilient and sustainable network for international trade.
Kotahi is New Zealand’s largest containerised freight manager. Founded in 2011 by dairy exporter Fonterra and meat exporter Silver Fern Farms, today it has 65 primary export customers and claims to have around 30 per cent of containerised export volume under its management.
Maersk is an integrated global logistics company, operating in more than 130 countries and employing 100,000 people worldwide.
Kotahi chief executive David Ross said while 10 years may be a long look ahead in an uncertain world, “one thing we know that will be happening is that we are going to have a great number of global supply chain disruptions”.
“You just have to look at the last five years and we’ve had all of them,” he said, referring to the pandemic, climate change and geopolitical upheaval in the shipping lanes.
The partnership had been “truly tested” in the past five years, particularly during the pandemic, he said.
“The longer we lock in a partnership that has proven so successfully to provide resilience and agility when our exporters have needed it, it just makes sense to do.
“All the important things for a really highly functioning supply chain take time, so the longer your time frame working together, the more value-add activities that make a really good export supply chain come into play.”
Kotahi chief executive David Ross.
Ross said the figure of $160b was the average value of primary goods exported in the partnership in the past 10 years, mainly commodities such as meat, dairy, seafood, timber and fresh produce.
The partnership had shipped 1.8 million containers or 23 million tonnes of New Zealand cargo to market, the majority being primary industry exports including dairy, meat, seafood, horticulture and forestry.
Australia-based Maersk spokeswoman Kylie Fraser said the partnership provides a long-term commitment and certainty of cargo volumes and gives the shipping line guidance on investment requirements.
Maersk recently opened a cool store with the latest technology at Hamilton’s Ruakura Superhub, a move it said showed its dedication to supporting New Zealand supply chain infrastructure.
Fraser could not comment on future investment by Maersk but said “we’re very committed to continuing to grow”.
Kotahi’s Ross said it was peak export time in the supply chain and “it’s generally working a lot more normally than we’ve had for quite a few years”.
“[But] we’re still dealing here and there with things that are challenging ... this is where the partnership, and the way Kotahi works, we’ve certainly been able to get a better market performance for our customers. After the last three or four years, it feels like a normal year.”
Ross and Fraser declined to comment on how shipping rates were responding to supply chain problems, such as the Red Sea crisis detour, saying it was too early in the cargo procurement cycle to respond.
Fraser said Maersk charges were “in line with the market”.
Andrea Fox joined the Herald as a senior business journalist in 2018 and specialises in writing about the dairy industry, agribusiness, exporting and the logistics sector and supply chains.
