Haesaerts moves into West Africa

WARMING UP TO COCOA

AFRICA • WITH ITS FOCUS ON COMPLEX SUPPLY CHAINS, HAESAERTS INTERMODAL IS PUTTING IN PLACE NEW FACILITIES TO BOOST THE SUPPLY OF CHOCOLATE IN EUROPE

BELGIUM-BASED HAESAERTS Intermodal has established a subsidiary in San Pedro, Ivory Coast. The new company, Haesaerts Intermodal Africa, will allow control of the entire cocoa butter logistics chain from producing regions in West Africa to the final destination in Europe.

Although Haesaerts Intermodal specialises in specific logistics solutions for chemical liquids and gases in challenging and demanding regions such as eastern Europe

TANK CONTAINERS OFFER A MORE EFFICIENT AND COST-

EFFECTIVE MEANS OF TRANSPORTING COCOA BUTTER and central Asia, the company has also been active in the transport of cocoa butter for many years. This is in line with the strategy of CEO Luc Haesaerts to focus on complex and vulnerable products that require special attention and care as well as advanced technological solutions. With a cost of around €6,000/tonne, cocoa butter is very expensive, making control of the entire logistics chain of paramount importance.

Haesaerts Intermodal currently transports 100 tank containers of cocoa butter per year from growing areas in Ivory Coast, Ghana and Cameroon to the chocolate factories in Europe. “This traffic is only increasing,” says Luc Haesaerts. “That is why we founded Haesaerts Intermodal Africa. The aim is to increase this traffic to 300 tank containers per year.

“We are the first European tank container operator in the region with its own local company,” Luc Haesaerts adds. “Instead of working with agents, we now have our own employees on location. This enables us to organise door-to-door transport ourselves, to better control quality throughout the chain and to intervene much more quickly in the event of an incident.”

The office in San Pedro is located on a new logistics platform within the autonomous port. This was created as part of the partnership between the ports of San Pedro and Antwerp. This platform is expected to become a regional logistics hotspot, not only for cocoa, but also for fertilisers and cashew nuts.

“In the zone dedicated to cocoa butter logistics, Haesaerts Intermodal Africa will create ultramodern storage and transit facilities, including a state-of-the-art tank cleaning installation,” Luc Haesaerts adds.

AVOID THE FLEXI “We transport cocoa butter in tank containers, which distinguishes us from other operators who opt for flexitanks loaded in conventional containers. Our solution requires more technology, making transport apparently more expensive. But if we calculate the total cost of operations (TCO), it is much cheaper,” explains Luc Haesaerts.

“After all, we have to take product losses in the chain and other hidden costs into account,” he stresses. “In a tank container, the only residue after transport is a film on the inner wall, with a total weight of only 20 kg. After emptying a flexitank, 400 to 700 kg of product remains in it. This residue is therefore an enormous cost factor.”

In addition, there are ‘hidden’ costs: the energy costs of heating the flexitank at its destination are much higher than those for a tank container and, above all, the flexitank must be destroyed after use by a specialised company. “This cost of destruction is continually increasing because of the environmental impact of plastics,” concludes Luc Haesaerts. HCB www.haesaerts.be