Thanks to our expansive partner network in most European Countries, TOGA has always enjoyed excellent coverage across Europe in Pre-Brexit times.
It has been an essential element of our business in 2021 as an increasing number of our Ireland-based customers have started sourcing their supplies in mainland Europe. In fact, at almost the same time as the restrictive nature of post-Brexit UK to Ireland trade became apparent in early January, our enquiries for EU to IE shipping suddenly increased. We’re a long way from the peak in this activity for sure.
Coinciding with this was an increase in EU to Ireland freight from almost all or our European agents. It was a very welcome and still growing addition to our volumes in the uncertain times of early 2021. Particularly the service to Northern Ireland which received a massive boost as European shippers took immediate advantage of avoiding the chaos of GB/NI transit in favour of seamless distribution between mainland Europe and Northern Ireland, via Dublin. No customs, no duty – and a faster service as a bonus! So marked was the increase that we needed to appoint an additional distribution partner in Northern Ireland to handle the demand.
At this time in 2019, before the chaos and disruptions of COVID and Brexit entered our lexicon, we were receiving around 30 EU import groupage containers weekly. That figure has now risen to a minimum of 50 per week and judging by the amount of enquiries flooding in, we expect this rise to continue right through 2021.
We welcome enquiries for groupage collections from: Belgium, France, Holland, Germany, Switzerland and Spain. We depart from 11 locations in these countries twice a week, shipping direct to Ireland from Cherbourg, Bilbao and Dunkirk and offer the best rates and fastest services by container and driver accompanies groupage trailer.
