What’s the best way to ship coffee? Someone famous once said, “Coffee is the elixir of the gods,” and if they didn’t then they should have because coffee is the elixir of the gods. Seriously. If you aren’t one of the 54% of Americans that drink coffee every day then you are missing out, because it’s wonderful and delicious.
Who cares if it stains your teeth or gives you the shakes? That’s what teeth whitening is for! We can’t all be surgeons (a little shake never hurt anyone). Here at FreightPros we’ve got it just as bad as everyone else, not to mention this Starbucks is literally close enough to hit a golf ball to. Sometimes life isn’t fair.
But with all this coffee talk, we wanted to bring this back around to shipping (not post office shipping though) and go over a few quick tips for the best way to ship coffee (use a standard sized pallet).
This ensures that if you are the type of person shipping coffee or coffee beans (And there are ALOT of you, the United States spends $4 Billion, with a “B,” importing coffee each year), your special Brazilian or Columbian or African elixir will arrive safe and sound. And with produce shipping season upon us, some of these can be applied to fruits and veggies as well!
1. PACKAGING IS KEY – First thing is first; don’t spill the beans (Joke courtesy of Ethan Halliday). But in all seriousness, one of the biggest problems we’ve encountered when shipping coffee beans is damage to the packaging of the coffee, resulting in a mess of spilled beans.
Make sure your shipment is packaged correctly both on the pallet as well as the individual pieces inside the boxes. Our friends at Kohana Coffee here in Austin, have taken the coffee packaging concept a step further by making a really amazing tasting, and easier to ship version of coffee with the Cold Brew Concentrate.
2. GET INSURANCE – Protect yourself against damaged freight by getting third party freight insurance. This is super important in your search for the best way to ship coffee. We cover the basics of insurance in our freight shipping guide if you want to learn more about claims and insurance, but we’ve noticed that often if one box or piece is damaged or leaking, it can ruin the entirety of the shipment.
We recommend always getting insurance as carriers can be hesitant to pay out a damage claim for a ruined box of coffee or food stuff that is only “ruined” by damage to an adjacent piece.
3. KNOW YOUR WEIGHT AND DIMENSIONS – We’ve discussed and explained freight class in previous posts on this blog, and coffee is a density-based item. In short, this means that with different weights and dimensions its possible to have multiple classes with different prices. Confirm your weight, dimensions, and freight class before shipping to avoid pesky re-classes.
4. CONFIRM THE CARRIER WILL MOVE THE COMMODITY – One last thing to keep in mind when you’re shipping coffee, especially if you’re moving a full truckload, is that some carriers won’t move coffee because of the smell. Now, I know what you’re thinking, coffee smells delicious! Everything should smell like coffee! But as it turns out, unprocessed coffee does have a particularly potent smell, one that can subsist in the back of trailers for months.
On the flip side, some drivers actually carry a can of Folgers in their cab, and use it as a smell neutralizer (for loads such as onions) to sprinkle in the back of their trucks to mask other smells. Crazy right?
So there you have it! Above you’ll find some information on the best way to ship coffee, so the next time you’re looking to move some that wonderful morning brew, think about LTL and truckload shipping and don’t forget FreightPros for the best way to ship coffee.