Tankers bring energy, bulk carriers bring food

The sea’s bounty includes wheat, meat and even Aussie beer

“When I ask people to guess the percentage of freight that travels by sea, people usually say somewhere between 40 and 50%; actually, the real percentage is 90%.” You have it on the author’s word: for this very reason the British writer Rose George decided to entitle her book 90% of Everything. The issue of maritime shipping – with the obvious and at times unfortunate exception of petroleum supertankers – is very rarely addressed, and to an even lesser degree is the shipping of food products. Yet, in these days of globalization, maritime food trade routes have come to hold a very strong hand.