Cheaper Courier Options for smaller quantities - Brazil to Ireland

zig

Hi all,

I am interested in investigating the idea of shipping coffee beans from central Brazil to Ireland as a potential side earner here (I have a small unique target market in mind). I am aware there would be a million things I will have to look at like customs duty, certs ,food safety etc, even food quality after shipping etc.

But for now I am just starting to look into the initial costs. There was a particular coffee I was having there which was in my opinion one of the nicest coffees I have had. As you probably know their standard is pretty high anyway for coffee but this one was even higher I thought. I have spent €6 or €7 for 250g bags here for coffee close to that quality.

I was chatting to the shop owner (sort of an in-law) and he buys them for approx €20/€25 for 5KG there.

So we went to a local post office there and they told me it would be about €90 to ship a 5KG item from there to Ireland. Even scaling up it wasnt going to be much different. Thats already €110 for a 5KG bag before even looking at the rest of the costs.

I looked up fedex and got a quote online and it wasnt far off the same price, a little better.

I am wondering are there any options available to me if speed/express wasnt a requirement per say? But also I would not be buying in the container load, they would have to be smaller(ish) quantities.

If I even hit around the €70-€80 mark per 5KG it would be viable.

andrewfaulk

zig wrote: »

Hi all,

I am interested in investigating the idea of shipping coffee beans from central Brazil to Ireland as a potential side earner here (I have a small unique target market in mind). I am aware there would be a million things I will have to look at like customs duty, certs ,food safety etc, even food quality after shipping etc.

But for now I am just starting to look into the initial costs. There was a particular coffee I was having there which was in my opinion one of the nicest coffees I have had. As you probably know their standard is pretty high anyway for coffee but this one was even higher I thought. I have spent €6 or €7 for 250g bags here for coffee close to that quality.

I was chatting to the shop owner (sort of an in-law) and he buys them for approx €20/€25 for 5KG there.

So we went to a local post office there and they told me it would be about €90 to ship a 5KG item from there to Ireland. Even scaling up it wasnt going to be much different. Thats already €110 for a 5KG bag before even looking at the rest of the costs.

I looked up fedex and got a quote online and it wasnt far off the same price, a little better.

I am wondering are there any options available to me if speed/express wasnt a requirement per say? But also I would not be buying in the container load, they would have to be smaller(ish) quantities.

If I even hit around the €70-€80 mark per 5KG it would be viable.

I work in shipping and we work with a good few companies that source coffee in raw bean form from around the world.. Maybe reaching out to one of those to source the beans in Ireland would be the best way to go.. Their buying and shipping costs(normally about 20 tonnes in a 20ft container) would be minute compared to what you will pay..

Plus you won’t have to deal with customs, compliance etc as you will be buying the goods in Ireland

zig

andrewfaulk wrote: »

I work in shipping and we work with a good few companies that source coffee in raw bean form from around the world.. Maybe reaching out to one of those to source the beans in Ireland would be the best way to go.. Their buying and shipping costs(normally about 20 tonnes in a 20ft container) would be minute compared to what you will pay..

Plus you won’t have to deal with customs, compliance etc as you will be buying the goods in Ireland

Wow thats interesting, thanks for the tip, actually since posting I started looking into port to port shipping and I couldnt get over how cheap it was, even for less than a container load. Of course that would mean doing everything myself but it was still interesting to see.

Do you have an example of one of those companies? Or what the name of their service would even be? Just that way I can do a bit of research. The only thing is, for me the selling point would be the taste of that particular coffee so I would see it as pointless if the coffee wasnt as nice. But perhaps I could ask/pay them for assistance in getting the coffee I want.

EDIT: Just realised you are talking about any of coffee companies in Ireland! Never mind! Thanks