Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/491374
28 STiR tea & coffee industry international ship ex-factory making the seller responsible for transport to the roaster. To better un- derstand why liner bags can be advantageous, it is helpful to review the strengths and weakness of traditional methods of coffee shipping. Once it is picked and dried coffee must be stored for logistical reasons and to im- prove the beans. The standard for hundreds of years has been to sew the coffee into 60-70 kg sacks. These were piled high during the harvest, transported from farm and loaded by hand into the ship's hold. Transport was rife with risks. Traveling from the tropics to northern ports led to condensation in the ship's hold due to great swings in humidity. Sacks were exposed to pollutants and salt air making the coffee prone to damage by mold, fungus, and mildew. Manually loading and off-loading pallets is strenuous and time consuming. As Christian Vollers, the general manager of Vollers, headquartered in Bremen, Germany remarked, "It may not look that strenuous when done well, but if you do that for eight hours, you're going to feel it in your muscles at the end of the day." Once docked the pallets must be off loaded. Removing coffee at the roastery is la- bor-intensive. Imagine shuttling pallets by forklift or hand cart, then lifting and slitting 4,000 sacks (16 lots) while directing the coffee through grating in the warehouse floor. The case for containers Nowadays beans shipped in bulk are loaded directly into shipping containers with inner liners made of virgin polyethylene (film or woven polyolefins). The liners, also called container bags, are attached to hooks in the upper corners of the container. The coffee is then loaded with the aid of a blower which causes the liner to align itself with the walls, roof and floor of the container. Once filled the liner is sealed and not opened again until it reaches its destination. Cost and coffee quality factor into the decision to use liners. The most obvious ad- vantage is that lined containers hold more coffee than the same container filled with pallets. Shippers can fit only 18 tons of coffee in gunny sacks while loading 21 tons into a lined 20-foot container. It takes fewer containers to ship the same amount of coffee. Not having to dispose of piles of used burlap is another savings. Coffee arrives in much better condition when shipped in bulk. Moisture and con- densation are more easily controlled resulting in less chance of mold. The possibility of insect infestation is also much lower. This is because pallets harbor insects which live in the fiber of the sacks. Liners suffocate bugs. Researchers in 2011 showed that storing grains at origin in large plastic "cocoons" made by GrainPro increased insect mortality by 16% compared to storage in bags under a tarp. In 2010 ICE adopted more stringent standards due to concerns about the age, color and taste of green coffee stored in traditional warehouses. Transport in contain- ers and storage in coffee silos reduces these concerns. Above, a network of chutes known as a decantation cyclone leads to the coffee silo. A worker takes a green coffee sample. Loading containers on trucks dockside Less and less coffee arrives in bags Researchers demonstrated in 2011 that storing coffee in sealed liners, called "cocoons", reduces damage from water, mildew, and mold while killing insects. Photo courtesy GrainPro