The purpose of the penalties is to incentivize the various players in the supply chain to keep goods flowing.
Truckers who don’t return an empty container on time pay late fees, or detention. Importers who don’t pick up their stuff on time get charged demurrage for storage at the marine terminals. In normal times, the fees, known as detention and demurrage, make a lot of sense. Hapag-Lloyd, the German shipping giant that owned the containers the bananas were sitting in, had become particularly notorious in the freight industry, leading to multiple complaints to the Federal Maritime Commission. The hauler that wanted $12,000 per container to move the bananas told the One Banana logistics specialist that it needed the money to cover a slew of fees the ocean carriers were tacking onto freight bills. In the first quarter of 2022, the biggest carriers’ operating margins hit 57%, according to one industry research firm, after hovering in the single digits before the pandemic. Simply put, as ballooning costs hit the wallets of American families, the global ocean shipping industry is enjoying its most profitable period in recent history. But the extra fees for transporting bananas - and countless other products - are a hidden and mind-boggling source of inflation controlled by ocean carriers. The war in Ukraine is driving up the price of gas. Massive consumer spending and pandemic shutdowns have strained supply chains. That alone might not break your budget, but rising prices of everyday items are adding up to the worst inflation in 40 years. If One Banana were to accept that additional fee and pass the full cost along to consumers, the bananas could go from 60 cents a pound to 90 cents a pound.
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