Food And Perishables
Food and perishables
For hundreds of years Britain has needed to import food to feed
itself. For instance, citrus fruits from Southern Europe, apples
from South Africa, bananas from the West Indies, lamb from
Australia or New Zealand, beef from South America, bacon from
Denmark. Bringing this produce home in the best possible condition
has required a lot of ingenuity from ship designers. For example,
meat needed to be frozen or chilled to survive the long journey
without going bad. Fruit also needs to be carefully stored at the
right temperature. Ships carrying foodstuffs are often particularly
fast. 
 Foodstuffs being transported inside Southampton`s
Union-Castle warehouse |
When the food arrives in the UK, it needs to be looked after
just as carefully. Therefore, ports that handle imported food need
facilities like cold stores to keep the produce until it could be
sold or processed. Also required is a workforce skilled in handling
these types of cargo. For instance, fruit porters needed to be
able to judge the condition of fruit they were handling. There also
needed to be the right transport facilities. For instance bananas
have to be loaded on to rail wagons or road trucks as quickly as
possible and sent on their way to the markets before they became
too ripe. Because it had a large population living nearby and also
provided these facilities, London grew to be Britain`s major food
importer. It never, though, captured much banana traffic. With containers, the trade in imported meat has changed, as with
so much else. The food is now usually packed in containers. These
may have built-in cooling or refrigeration equipment. When unloaded
from the ship, the containers are simply put onto a truck or train
to be taken to their destination: skilled handling or storage is
not required. Thus, ports that have the facilities for handling
containers most efficiently now import most of our food.
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