La compagnie MSC, Primever et Port Sud de France ont officialisé l'ouverture d'une ligne régulière d'importations fruitières au Port Sud de France. ARCHIVE Midi Libre – PHILIPPE MALRIC
Primever, MSC et le Port Sud de France ont officialisé ce nouveau service maritime à Sète, ce mercredi 5 février, au salon Fruit Logistica de Berlin.
It’s official. A regular fruit and vegetable import line will open at the port of Sète in a few weeks. Primever, the French leader in fruit and vegetable transport, manager of the Port Sud de France refrigerated terminal, has just signed a major agreement with the Geneva-based maritime transport giant MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company. Initially, “a direct service from West Africa (Nouakchott and Dakar) which, by connecting MSC’s two strategic hubs, Las Palmas (Canary Islands) and Valencia, will also open up access to supplies from South America and South Africa […] The culmination of two years of collaboration with our import customers”, indicates Primever on its LinkedIn page. In the long term, bananas, pineapples, mangoes, citrus fruits, avocados and other exotic products should land in the port of Sète, from West Africa, but also Latin America (Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, etc.) and South Africa. Egypt, Morocco or Turkey could also join the list of fruit rotations with Sète. At the rate of one boat, the MSC Tiana F (160 m), per week. In all seasons.
A feeder boat per week
While many technical elements remain to be established between the operators, the first ship loaded with melons from Dakar is already expected in Sète on March 7. Annual imported volumes are among the topics “still under discussion”, says Samy Kchok, Primever's general manager for Europe and international, who was also present this week in Berlin at the Fruit Logistica trade fair, with the aim of meeting potential future customers for these new lines. “MSC will adapt its fleet accordingly. They will start with feeders(small tonnage vessels covering short distances) which will relay their large port hub in Spain (Las Palmas in the Canaries and Valencia, etc.) where the containers will be transhipped to Sète. They will come and connect the flows on these two hubs to bring them back to Sète. And as the service grows, they will put in bigger boats,” assures the boss of Primever.
Olivier Carmes: “The dynamism of the port has reassured”
This contract is great news for the Port?
We have been coming to the Fruit Logistica trade fair for so many years with the hope of working on this line project that at some point it will pay off. We are obviously satisfied. It was a fruit and vegetable sector that needed to be revived since it has been stopped in Sète for 13 years. To revive knowing that we have magnificent tools, the refrigerated terminal and the gantry, taken over by a high-performance operator like Primever, is all profit.
What convinced the operators?
First of all, it is the level of activity of the port of Sète. 11 years ago and today it is nothing like that. We have gone from 3 million tonnes to 10 million. When we see the dynamism and what we are able to do with DFDS on Turkey, the rail links, all the professionals are there, it is true that it reassures the operator. A little time was needed to mature the file. The presence of Primever is also very important. This direct maritime connection and their desire to diversify have been reassuring. The third element is the availability of the shipowners, it is necessary to find available boats and they have been able to integrate Sète into the flow of shipping lines. The relationship of trust that we have with the MSC group has worked in our favor. It is already present through GNV ferry and which is in full development. The ferry, the container and perhaps tomorrow the cruise is logical for MSC.
These goods will be intended first for the French market. “Mass distribution, i.e. importers who will receive the goods, Rungis. So we are rather on the French market, even if tomorrow, we will be able to re-export to England, Germany, Belgium, Italy, etc., explains Samy Kchok. We will do all the logistics, transit and customs for all the mail that will arrive. We will manage this in stock in the warehouse. And then, afterwards, with our trucks, we will redeliver the French market like the other European markets. And after, we will use the future rail services of the port for the destinations that allow it, in particular Northern Europe” . The establishment of the port of Sète will be an advantage for importers from the South of France according to Primever. “In some ways, we are more in a logic of rebalancing flows from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean. Today, what interests our customers is having a port and logistics solution in the Mediterranean, a bit like Dunkirk in the North. We have some customers who have, between 60 and 80%, of their supplies from South Africa arriving in Rotterdam while they are based near Cavaillon or Avignon.”
“The fruit does not wait”
It is above all the configuration of the refrigerated terminal that convinced Primever (1,500 trucks and 50 warehouses across France and Europe) to open a regular import line to Sète. “The fruit does not wait. Having a quayside warehouse like the one in Sète, unique in Europe, guarantees speed of operations. We have proven this in the last two lychee operations. When a container arrives, within half an hour we can reload a truck behind it. The infrastructure saves time on phytosanitary and customs checks because everything is done in the warehouse, unlike in the largest ports where the container has to be sent to a specific inspection point. This can waste 2-3 hours or even half a day.”
“4,000 pallets per week”
Primever, which took over management of the terminal in 2023, is on the verge of fulfilling its bet. “The outlook potentially brings us between 200 and 300 containers per week. A container is 20 pallets, that's 4,000 pallets per week. That's more or less the objectives that MSC has set for itself. I think that the activity that we're going to attract to the port will lead us to reach this objective that we set for ourselves with the port by the end of the second year.” Probably beyond 80% occupancy.
Primever therefore intends to “set up permanently” on the Port Sud de France, at least ten years. This suggests the prospect of around forty direct jobs depending on the increase in capacity, but also indirect ones.
Security: “We work in complete transparency with the border police and customs”
Security will be a crucial point in the import chain for exotic goods such as bananas, particularly from areas such as Colombia. "These are sensitive subjects and we work in complete transparency with the border police and customs, explains Samy Kchok, the director of Primever. In fact, since we arrived in 2023, we had explained that the project. Right away, we explained that potentially, there would be arrivals from Ecuador, Colombia, etc. This will be part of the subject that will have to be integrated into the operations and everything that goes around it. So of course, this is an extremely important point for me, as a business leader, and for both the safety and security of goods and people.”
Primever has a PIF-PEC approval (border inspection point for animals and Community entry point for plant imports). “These are things for which we had to submit a file that was validated by both the French administration and also the European administration. It was also necessary to show all the devices to secure first the sanitary part and then other elements in case of a problem”, Samy Kchok further specifies.
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