The price you pay for a box of imported fruit is really four prices stacked on top of each other: what the grower charges at the packhouse door (FOB), the cost of getting it to the UK (freight and insurance), the cost of getting it across the border (duty, inspections, clearance) and the cost of getting it to you (haulage, storage, handling).
Small buyers lose on all four. Growers quote list prices to part-load buyers. Freight is charged per container whether it is full or not, so four pallets in a groupage load can cost as much per box as a whole container would. Border costs such as inspection fees and clearance charges are per consignment, so they weigh heavily on small shipments.
Pooling fixes the structure. When several UK buyers commit to the same origin and window, the combined order fills a container. The grower sees one committed buyer for 20 pallets, not five enquiries for four. Freight is divided across a full load. Fixed border costs are shared.
The savings are real but not magic. On a typical sea-freight line the biggest gains come from freight utilisation and from moving from list price to programme price. On air-freight lines the gain is mostly in chargeable-weight consolidation. The calculator on our Tools page lets you model your own numbers, and we always show FOB, freight, border costs and our fee as separate lines.
