Programmes in fresh produce importing

A programme is why a rolled container is not simply a late container. The fruit still arrives; the week it was sold into does not, and by then somebody else’s fruit is on the shelf.

A programme is a standing commitment to supply an agreed volume, to an agreed specification, at an agreed cadence — usually a container or more every week, across a season or the whole year. Price may be fixed, formula-linked, or renegotiated periodically. What makes it a programme is the cadence, not the price.

Programme against spot #

Most importers run both. The programme is what a packhouse plans its labour around and what a retailer builds a promotion on; spot is what fills a gap when a programme runs short, or moves fruit nobody committed to. The difference shows up when a sailing is oversold: contract cargo outranks spot, so the box that gets rolled is usually the cheap one.

The commitment is at the destination #

A programme is counted in arrivals, not departures. You promised fruit on a shelf in a particular week; the shipping you bought is only the means. So every source of transit variance — a rollover, a missed transshipment, a blanked sailing — is a programme problem before it is a shipping problem.

Miss a week and it is recorded against you as a service failure, and somebody fills the gap. Have two weeks land together and you are selling a glut into your own promotion.

Seasonal and year-round programmes fail differently #

Bananas out of Ecuador ship against a standing programme every week of the year, so a slipped sailing does not cost a slot that will not come round again — it collides with the arrival behind it. A cherry programme out of Chile runs for a handful of weeks, and a week missed at the peak is simply gone.

Either way, the thing worth knowing early is which programme week is at risk, while there is still time to tell the buyer — which is an argument for watching arrivals against the programme rather than one container at a time.

FAQ #

Is a programme the same thing as a contract? #

The programme is the commercial shape; the contract is the paper behind it. Plenty of programmes run on an exchange of emails confirming weekly volumes, with terms carried by a supply agreement nobody reads until something goes wrong. How enforceable it is varies; the commercial cost of missing a week does not wait for that question to be settled.

What happens if I cannot fill a programme week? #

Say so early. From there it is short-shipping, substituting another origin or specification, or covering on spot — all of which cost money, and all of which cost less than the buyer finding out from an empty shelf.

Should I be on a programme or buying spot? #

Programme volume buys priority on equipment and on vessel slots, and lets the origin plan its picking and packing around you. Spot buys flexibility, and sometimes a better price in a soft market. Most importers run a programme as the base and use spot at the margins.

Does a programme protect me from demurrage? #

No. Free time is a separate allowance in your contract with the line, and it starts at discharge whatever you promised your buyer. A programme raises the cost of a delay; it does not change the clock.