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KC Shipping fights fires in Bolivia

[ June 14, 2013   //   ]

If their house caught fire, there was nothing the 100,000 inhabitants of Riberalta in Bolivia could do about it because the town did not have a single fire engine. Now though, the river settlement is the proud possessor of a gleaming US machine – thanks to Glasgow-based forwarder, KC Group Shipping. The refurbished fire tender was shipped from Miami to Iquique in Chile free of charge on a flat-rack by CSAV vessel and for the arduous 7-14 day road journey to Riberalta.

KC Shipping’s involvement in Riberalta is due to the brazil nut, which grows wild in the deep rainforest. (Only 10% of the world’s output actually come from Brazil.) Arguably one of the most sustainable agricultural products in the world, the locals pick the ripe nuts off the forest floor where they fall and they are shelled and then shipped off to dinner tables all over the world. KC recently opened an office in Santa Cruz, Bolivia in partnership with KC Logistica.

With brazil nuts one of the many niche commodities that KC is involved in – it moves several thousand tonnes all over the world in conjunction with niche commodity firm, Freeworld Trading -“we wanted to put something back into the community,” explains senior logistics co-ordinator, John Hepburn.

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