Market Morsel: Steaks on a plane.

Market Morsel

At EP3, we spend a lot of time discussing freight costings, as it makes a big difference to our competitive advantage. We are an export-dominated country. Therefore we need to send our products overseas to our customers. On the flip side, we are also an importer of most of our parts and other inputs.

We typically are interested in sea freight, what goes in a container or bulk vessel. However, airfreight plays a strong role. In the export market, this is especially important for high-value goods such as meat, seafood and some horticultural products.

The cost of freight across the board rose during covid, and now we are starting to see it fall back to more normal levels. This is also the case for air freight.

The chart below shows the cost of air freight has reduced dramatically since its recent highs; this follows the increase in people travelling around the world (see previous). So the good news for farmers is getting that part from the US/Europe will be cheaper and get here quicker.