Ten UK loading ports, seven airports, 198 destinations.

What a destination agent actually does

Once a vessel or aircraft arrives, control of your cargo passes to a local handler, and the quality of that handler decides whether the shipment finishes cleanly. They lodge the import entry, pay the local charges, arrange quarantine or customs inspection where it is ordered, release the cargo from the terminal before free time expires and organise inland delivery. A weak agent costs you storage, demurrage and days.

We choose agents on the basis of how they handle problems rather than how cheaply they handle easy shipments, and we hold them to written service standards on arrival notification, clearance turnaround and charge transparency. Where a country is difficult — limited terminal capacity, complex inspection regimes, currency controls — we tell you at quotation stage what to expect rather than letting you discover it.