When we sail, and where.

The strawberry year opens. The first sailing was on Tuesday the 27th — the Aida-line reefer out of Damietta, seven pallets of Fortuna from the El-Bostan co-operative, arrived Rotterdam Wednesday the 5th of February. From this Tuesday onward, every Tuesday is a strawberry Tuesday until the season closes in May. Air freight from Cairo to Amsterdam begins running twice weekly for the first soft-fruit pallets and the year-round herb line.

The artichoke season opens above Wadi Natrun. The second reefer slot from Alexandria into Rotterdam goes live for mixed-pallet loads — twelve farms in one container, hand-graded at the El-Hammam pack-house. The dry-van for hibiscus from the previous autumn's harvest is now on the closing weeks; we plan to clear the Borg El Arab cold-store by the end of the month.

Spring is on the boat. Three weekly reefers move strawberry, artichoke, and the early green bean. The first hibiscus harvest is in Aswan; the karkadeh flowers go onto open trays and dry for six weeks under the upper-Egypt sun. The Schiphol cargo terminal is now running our daily fresh-herb air-pallet — twelve months of the year, but in spring it doubles.

The peak of artichoke and the peak of strawberry overlap. We run twice-weekly reefer out of Damietta, plus one Saturday departure from Alexandria for the IQF strawberry shoulder. A first trial of the Gdansk freeze-dry route goes — a reefer to the Polish plant, road to a Dutch food-maker who needs shelf-stable strawberry powder for an October launch.

The closing weeks of strawberry; the opening weeks of apricot. This week sees the last strawberry reefer of the season sail on Tuesday the 26th. The first apricot from Bani Mazar will load on Tuesday the 2nd of June with an air-freight trial pallet on the same day. Pomegranate IQF arils from last autumn move on the Westerschelde service to a Friesland yoghurt account. Twelve active lanes are at their fullest week.

The pivot. The first apricot reefer sails the 2nd; mango trial pallets fly from week 25; the new hibiscus crop is loaded onto a dry-van from Aswan to Alexandria. The molokhia line opens to two Egyptian-grocer accounts in Amsterdam-West and Den Haag. The Schiphol herb pallet stays at daily.

Apricot closes; mango opens; the first Siwa Medjool is graded. The reefer cadence is at its highest — three weekly sailings from Damietta and Alexandria combined. Heat is the enemy and the cold chain is the discipline. No box leaves the El-Hammam pack-house after 11 a.m. local.

The year reverses. Seed potato from Friesland is lifted in the third week. The first containers leave Rotterdam on the 25th, reach Damietta on the 4th of September, and the Beheira growers begin preparing for autumn planting. Mango peak weeks; Medjool grades climb; the freeze-dry route runs hottest into Gdansk.

Pomegranate opens. The second green bean cut goes onto the spring lane. The seed potato containers arrive in Damietta on the 4th. Mouneer signs the autumn contracts; Sherif locks in the autumn buyer book; Mohamed schedules the November cert-audit week. The wheel turns.

The autumn flagship is pomegranate, fresh whole fruit and IQF arils. The greenhouse-film container leaves Eindhoven for Damietta. The hibiscus dry-van clears the autumn Aswan crop. Friesland dairy cultures move every week. The Cairo agronomist orders the Westland hybrid-seed shipment for the December planting.

Pomegranate closes; the IQF processor runs at full capacity through the night shifts. The Twente drip-tape extruder ships out for the cool-month planting in Egypt. The Westland climate-control units travel down on the same lane. Mouneer's autumn loop ends with the last Bani Mazar signature.

The trade quiets. Friesland dairy cultures keep moving on the air line. The audit calendar is the work of the desk now — December and January are the cert months. We open the books for the next year's strawberry contracts before the close of the year, and the Cairo office takes its single week off in the last week of December. The first January sailing is already booked.