Next-day delivery, Channel Tunnel, sanitary clearance and a cargo that couldn’t wait
Hatching eggs are not standard freight. They are highly perishable and time critical cargo. If eggs are not placed into incubation promptly after collection, viability drops. So the delivery timeline is not a preference, it is a biological requirement.
The customer required a next-day express collection from Saint-Hilaire-la-Plaine in central France and delivery to Bishops Castle in Shropshire. This meant a mandatory Channel Tunnel crossing, a phytosanitary inspection at Dover and a cargo that could not afford to sit waiting at the border.
Meeting live animal cargo requirements
Agricultural and perishable imports from the EU carry specific compliance requirements that sit alongside the operational ones. The two have to be managed together, not in sequence.
Moving live animal products from France into the UK requires a Common Health Entry Document (CHED) and a sanitary inspection at the point of entry. These are non-negotiable. But the inspection process at Dover can involve waiting time.
For a next-day delivery with a time-sensitive cargo, any queue at the border has huge consequences. For a cargo like hatching eggs, having a single point of contact managing every stage is what makes the difference between a viable delivery and a missed window.
The Channel Tunnel crossing was mandatory for this job, which added a further fixed point in the timeline that had to be planned around.
The difference between a smooth crossing and a delayed one comes down almost entirely to whether the documentation is correct and in place before the vehicle arrives.
End-to-end support
We handled the full process: loading coordination, customs documentation, CHED preparation,import clearance, Channel Tunnel booking and final delivery to the farm.
This included coordinating with our customs team to prepare the CHED and compliant import clearance in advance of the crossing. So by the time the driver reached Dover, all the necessary paperwork was already submitted and in order.
This meant there was no waiting at the border. The inspection process ran smoothly because the groundwork had been done before the vehicle got there. This meant the eggs arrived at their destination within the incubation window.
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