The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago, a series of Islands, which in 1959 became our fiftieth State. The most populated islands involved in day to day business are the Big Island, Hawaii, with major cities Hilo and Kona; the Island of Maui; the Island of Kauai; and of course the most populated Island of Oahu.
Young Brothers Ltd., has operated a barge service between the Islands for over 100 years. In 1999 they were purchased by a Seattle based investment firm Saltchuk Resources. Today Young Brothers operates a fleet of seven barges with a combined capacity of over 60,000 tons. From Honolulu they sail three days each week to and from Maui, and twice weekly to and from Kona, Hilo and Kauai.
In 2013 the CFI management team in Hawaii met with the Young Brothers management team to discuss cool chain and LCL perishable products. In truth they could not handle perishables commodities LTL as well as they knew they should. They did not have the infrastructure to receive or protect shipments while in their care and possession. A driver trying to deliver to Young Brothers LTL had long lines and wait times at the terminal. After Young Brothers received the product it remained exposed to the elements up to four hours before it was finally loaded into refrigerated containers. As bad as that was, the customer really did not have any option other than air freight which was far more costly.
Also around this time the Box Stores began opening in Hawaii. Costco, Sam’s, Walmart, and high end stores like Whole Foods each have high cool chain requirements with a zero tolerance for temperature spikes. Much of this was discussed during that meeting with Young Brothers in 2013 and a new service began as the CFI/YB perishable consolidation. CFI could eliminate the long driver wait times, we had refrigeration and freeze at each of our facilities, we encouraged customers to deliver their product the day before the sailing, and at no cost we protected in our chill or freeze overnight. This made the consolidation much more controlled and allowed us to pre-cool each refrigerated container prior to loading for the sailing. We are also able to offer our customers temperature controlled delivery to door. It was a win-win-win deal for all the participants in the program.
We are now into our fifth year of providing a temperature controlled environment for perishable products through our consolidation. We currently average 70-75 refrigerated containers each month and on heavier months have exceeded 100 containers. Our goal is to continue to build our service, but more importantly, to provide a seamless temperature controlled environment for our Hawaiian customers and the communities we live within.
We are pleased to announce our Honolulu Consolidation Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday. Call today for rates or a reservation
