PMA, Produce Marketing Association, organized a virtual town hall for its members on March 25, 2020, on the impact of the corona crisis on the fresh food sector. Foodcareplus, PMA member and the logistics partner in fresh food and cold chain, shared some insights into the European market. We have listed some of the current bottlenecks.
To date, the main European transport hubs (ports and distribution centers) have had no interruptions. Transport within Europe is still relatively smooth, although there are delays at some border crossings due to increased controls on non-essential passenger transport. Intercontinental flows do experience large capacity limitations.
Regarding the last mile, there are some issues in Europe. The share of e-commerce/home deliveries was also much smaller in Europe before the corona crisis than on other continents. In the current situation, there is an extreme increase in demand, which makes it once again clear that there is a shortage of capacity for collections and home deliveries.
