Global Logistics & Export
Sourcing, consolidation, documentation and freight managed from one Belgian warehouse — routed through Antwerp and Rotterdam to buyers in 60+ countries.
Two buyers can take identical pallets and land them at very different cost, because one settled the Incoterm, the port and the document set before the pro-forma was issued and the other left all three until afterwards. This page sets out how goods leave us: the ports, the Incoterms, how a mixed load is built and which papers travel with the box.
Routing out of Antwerp and Rotterdam
Our warehousing sits at Aalter in East Flanders, close to both of Europe's largest container gateways. Between them, Antwerp and Rotterdam reach every lane a wholesale buyer works — West and East Africa, the Gulf, South and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America. Because we load out of either, the port is a variable in your quotation rather than a constraint on it.
Which one a consignment uses is decided by the sailing, not by habit; buyers with their own European forwarder say so, and we deliver into the terminal they nominate. For road moves inside the EU and into Switzerland, the UK and Turkey, neither port is involved — the load travels under a CMR consignment note.
One partner, from pallet to port to door
Picking, consolidation, paperwork and freight are one workflow rather than four suppliers — we assemble the catalogue behind your shipment in the same building the container is stuffed in.
Sea freight (FCL & LCL)
Full-container and groupage ocean freight from both ports. Liquid-dense beverages lines buyers add to your shipment hit the payload ceiling with floor space showing; cased goods like our snacks portfolio fill the cube first. Most containers are built from both.
Air freight
Booked when arriving early is worth more than the premium — a listing date, a promotional window, samples ahead of a container. Air moves on an air waybill, which changes who releases the goods at the other end.
Bonded warehousing
Stock can be staged under customs control while a load is assembled, and holding your shipment in bond suits phased releases and straight re-export — but bond suspends duty, not shelf life, so dating is managed alongside it.
Export documentation
Invoice, packing list, export declaration and transport document on every consignment. We specify export documents for a consignment of your shipment before the order is confirmed — a missing certificate surfaces at your border, not ours.
Quality & compliance
Goods ship in original manufacturer packaging. Before release we check market version and label language against the destination, record batch coding and best-before dating, and confirm the pack matches the pro-forma specification.
Door-to-door delivery
Delivery to your warehouse, a named discharge port or a forwarder you appoint — whichever the agreed Incoterm defines. Where a destination requires a local clearing agent, we work to the one you nominate.
Incoterms: what EXW, FOB, CIF and DAP change for the buyer
An Incoterm is not a price. It states where our obligation ends and yours begins, who arranges carriage and who carries the risk in between — and it is the biggest single reason two quotations for identical goods look nothing alike.
EXW — collected from our warehouse
Goods are picked, palletised, wrapped and made available for loading at our premises; loading, export declaration, haulage, terminal handling, the ocean leg and clearance are yours. Lowest headline figure, most work. It suits buyers already running a European consolidation programme who want our pallets added to it.
FOB — on board at the port of loading
We deliver the container to the vessel and clear it for export; risk passes once the goods are on board and you hold the ocean contract. Usual where you have negotiated carrier rates. Send the booking reference early — the terminal delivery window, not the packing, decides which sailing you catch.
CIF — carriage and insurance to your discharge port
Ocean freight and marine insurance sit on our side of the quotation, delivered to the port you name; clearance, duty and the inland move remain yours. Easiest structure for comparing our offer against a local landed cost. One point buyers miss: risk still passes at the port of loading even though we pay carriage — which is what the insurance covers.
DAP — delivered to the address you name
Delivered At Place carries the goods to your warehouse or a third-party address, with import duty and taxes remaining yours as importer of record. It is the closest thing to turnkey we offer, and a common first order into a market still being tested.
Buyers move along that list as a relationship matures — DAP or CIF while the range is proven, then FOB or EXW once local clearing justifies it. The term is always stated with its named place, because FOB without a port is not a contract term.
Container, part-load or pallet — deciding the order structure
A full container load gives the lowest unit rate and the simplest paperwork: one box, one transport document, one clearance, sealed at our door and opened at yours. It earns its place once your range fills it, because a half-empty container costs what a full one costs. A groupage part-load shares a box — higher unit rate, longer transit, no commitment. Pallet and case quantities suit replenishment and sampling, and are how most container relationships begin: a pallet each of several lines, then a container of whichever rotate.
Two physical limits govern all three: a container has a maximum permitted payload and a fixed internal cube, and almost no load reaches both at once. Water, PET soft drinks and glass hit the weight ceiling with floor space still visible; cased snacks and light household goods fill the cube long before mass matters. Pairing a heavy base with a lighter top is what keeps freight per unit down.
Mixed loads: several categories, one freight cost
Most containers leaving here are mixed, which is the reason to buy from a distributor rather than ten brand owners: beverages, confectionery, coffee, snacks, sauces, household, personal care and baby lines travel under one invoice, one transport document and one customs entry, so freight is paid once.
The constraints on what shares a box are cheaper to settle while the order list is drawn up than on the loading bay. Detergents are stowed away from scent-absorbent foods; anything not ambient-stable is ranged out of an ocean move; aerosols and some cosmetic formats carry dangerous-goods classifications that change the paperwork and sometimes the carrier.
The document file that travels with the goods
Every consignment leaves with a commercial invoice, packing list, export declaration and transport document. Origin evidence follows where the goods were made: EUR.1 movement certificates where they qualify on EU preferential origin — preferential origin follows the place of manufacture, not the brand's nationality — and a Certificate of Origin with full export documentation for lines that do not.
Destinations add their own, worth naming early: health, sanitary or free-sale certificates; pre-shipment conformity assessment; chamber-of-commerce legalisation or consular attestation; halal attestation; ingredient and allergen statements. We ask what your clearing agent needs at quotation stage, because several must be applied for before the goods move and cannot be issued retrospectively.
Consolidated, documented, dependable
Consolidation does not only reduce freight; it reduces what can go wrong. One shipment means one document set, one clearance, one arrival to plan labour around, and one party to ask.
If something is still open before you commit — how a part-load consolidates, what dating is confirmed ahead of dispatch, how an account is opened — the questions that come up before ordering your shipment are answered in detail on our FAQ.
- Flexible MOQs — from a single pallet to multiple containers
- Consolidation of mixed brands and categories into one shipment
- Loading from Antwerp or Rotterdam, whichever sailing suits your lane
- Incoterms to suit your business: EXW, FOB, CIF, DAP & more
- Insurance and careful handling on every consignment
Questions buyers ask before booking freight
How is the pallet count for a container confirmed?
Not from a published table, because it moves with format, pallet height and the weight-to-cube balance of the lines you take. Case count, layer pattern, pallet configuration and the resulting count per 20ft or 40ft container are set out in writing on the pro-forma against the allocation offered.
Which Incoterm should a first-time buyer ask for?
Most first orders are quoted CIF or DAP. Both put the European side of the move on us, so you compare one delivered figure against your local landed cost rather than assembling an estimate from three quotations. Buyers move to FOB or EXW once their own carrier and clearing arrangements are established.
Tell us the destination port, the lines and the Incoterm you trade on. If volumes are regular, activate an account for volumes of your shipment so quotations return against agreed terms; if the range is settled, ask for pricing on your shipment and our export desk confirms availability, dating and documents.
Plan your next shipment with us
Tell us your destination and Incoterms — we'll build a logistics plan and quote around your needs.
Reference guides for shippers
Corridor-specific detail — routing, preference mechanism and the documents each destination expects — is set out per market: supply into the UAE and the Gulf, the post-Brexit UK corridor, and shipments into Nigeria.
The detail behind how we route, load and document a shipment is set out in these references, along with where we ship and under which trade preferences on our export markets overview.