A large food importer: from $1.3m in D&D charges to $0.
A large food importer: from $1.3m in D&D charges to $0.
A food importer shipping from South Asia to North America tracked free-time exposure on every container and checked every D&D charge against its terms. A $1.3m bill went to zero, straight back into margin.
Results
at a glance.
Results
at a glance.
$1.3m to $0
D&D charges, across 2026
A $1.3m D&D bill, and no early warning.
A $1.3m D&D bill, and no early warning.
Every container our customer imports comes with a set number of free days at the port and on the road. Once those run out, the carrier charges for every extra day.
They import and distribute Southeast Asian foods and ingredients across the US, with containers arriving all year on Asia-Pacific lanes. Across all of them, demurrage and detention came to more than $1.3m a year.
Charges that arrived too late to stop.
The $1.3m was the visible cost. The bigger problem was timing.
D&D invoices arrived weeks or months after a shipment had finished. By then the container was long gone, and the only option left was to pay.
Every container's free time, tracked live.
They rolled Beacon out across their Asia-Pacific lanes. Each container's free time is now tracked against its live ETA, across every carrier.
The team sees which containers are about to run out of free days, and collects, returns or reroutes them before charges start.
From $1.3m to near zero.
Within months of going live, they were on track to cut their annual D&D bill from more than $1.3m to near zero. That money now goes straight back into margin.
Stop D&D before it starts.
Stop D&D before it starts.
Beacon tracks free time on every container and checks every charge against your terms, so you act before a breach and only pay what you owe.
- Free-time tracking: live exposure on every container
- Charge checks: every D&D charge checked against your terms
More stories from food and beverage teams like yours.
More stories from food and beverage teams like yours.
From $1.3m in D&D charges to $0
Every container in one place
“Real live data on the status of our containers all in one place instead of having to interrogate all of the individual shipping websites.”
Four teams on one set of numbers
“Beacon is one place, one picture, and it updates itself.”
1-2 hours back every week on invoice checks
“It has helped me speed up authorising invoices immensely.”
Every container confirmed as shipped
“When the container is on the Beacon system, we can be sure it actually shipped.”
Forwarders held to their SLAs
“We now understand our freight spend much better than before.”
See the whole picture. Decide with confidence.
See the whole picture. Decide with confidence.
