by Thom King – Founder, Chief Innovation Officer, Food Scientist, Icon Foods

Global shipping has a pricing problem and it’s coming for your COGS. If you thought the global shipping industry had finally settled down after several years of disruption, think again.

The latest financial results from global shipping giant Maersk offer an interesting look at what is happening behind the scenes. Ocean freight rates have climbed dramatically, port congestion continues to interfere with shipping schedules, and global trade has remained surprisingly resilient.

According to Maersk’s November 5, 2026 announcement, average spot container freight rates, as measured by the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index, increased 46% during the third quarter compared with the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, global container demand is expected to grow approximately 4% in 2026. Those two numbers tell an important story.

Freight prices are increasing much faster than underlying shipping demand. The explanation involves weather disruptions, geopolitical uncertainty, congested ports, and vessels spending more time waiting instead of transporting cargo.

For food and beverage manufacturers, that creates a procurement challenge. Even when raw material prices remain relatively stable, transportation costs can move the landed cost of ingredients in the wrong direction.

And nobody wants their carefully constructed formulation economics getting mugged by an ocean freight invoice.

Why Ocean Freight Rates Are Increasing

The global container shipping market operates on a relatively straightforward principle: available shipping capacity versus demand. When demand exceeds effective capacity, prices increase.

However, effective capacity is not simply the number of container ships operating worldwide. It also depends on how quickly those vessels can complete voyages, unload cargo, and return for another shipment. A container ship waiting offshore contributes very little to the movement of goods.

During the third quarter of 2026, severe weather across Asia created significant congestion. Maersk reported global average port waiting times reaching 16.6 hours at their peak, the highest level since January 2023.

Geopolitical disruptions have also forced shipping companies to reconsider traditional trade routes, increasing voyage complexity, operating costs, and schedule uncertainty.

At the same time, demand from industrial investment, energy infrastructure, and artificial intelligence development has contributed to resilient global cargo movement.

The result is a transportation market in which freight rates can increase even without an equivalent increase in shipment volumes.

The takeaway: Higher freight rates do not necessarily mean more cargo is moving. Sometimes they mean the existing cargo is moving less efficiently.

What This Means for Specialty Food Ingredients

Many ingredients used in modern food and beverage formulation depend on international supply chains. These include:

While these ingredients differ considerably in their manufacturing processes, origins, and market economics, they share an important characteristic: international transportation can represent a meaningful component of delivered cost.

For some high-value, low-inclusion ingredients, freight represents a relatively small percentage of total product value. For lower-cost, high-volume ingredients, transportation can have a much larger impact on the economics.

Consider erythritol. When an ingredient is purchased in container quantities, an increase of several thousand dollars in freight can meaningfully affect its landed cost per kilogram.

Now consider a high-intensity sweetener such as Reb M, which may be used at extremely low concentrations. Its freight cost per finished serving may be negligible, even when ocean rates increase.

The Hidden Economics of Landed Cost

One of the most common mistakes in ingredient procurement is focusing exclusively on the supplier’s quoted price. The price on the purchase order is only one component of the actual cost of getting an ingredient into production. A complete landed-cost calculation may include:

  • Raw material purchase price
  • Ocean freight and fuel-related surcharges
  • Marine cargo insurance
  • Port handling and terminal charges
  • Customs duties and applicable tariffs
  • Customs brokerage
  • Drayage and inland transportation
  • Warehousing and handling
  • Demurrage, detention, and other avoidable charges

These expenses ultimately influence the cost of goods sold. Let’s look at a hypothetical example. A manufacturer imports a 20,000-kilogram container of a bulk sweetener. The original ocean freight rate is $2,500 per container. Market disruption increases that rate to $5,000. The additional transportation expense is $2,500, equivalent to $0.125 per kilogram.

For a manufacturer purchasing 20 containers annually, that increase represents $50,000 in additional freight expense. And that’s before considering possible changes in domestic transportation, port charges, or inventory carrying costs.

For high-volume manufacturers operating on narrow margins, those costs deserve attention.

The 2027 Paradox: Higher Rates Today Could Mean Lower Rates Tomorrow

Here is where the story gets interesting. Despite the current strength in ocean freight pricing, there are reasons to believe transportation costs could moderate during 2027. Additional container vessels entering the global fleet may increase available capacity.

A normalization of shipping routes through the Suez Canal could also shorten certain voyages, allowing existing vessels to move more cargo with less time spent at sea. Both developments could increase effective shipping capacity and place downward pressure on freight rates. However, the timing and magnitude remain uncertain.

Port congestion, fuel costs, geopolitical developments, and unexpected demand changes could continue supporting elevated prices. This creates a genuine procurement dilemma. Lock in freight pricing too aggressively, and you risk paying above-market rates if shipping costs decline. Remain entirely exposed to spot pricing, and you risk sudden increases that disrupt your landed-cost assumptions. Neither extreme is particularly attractive.

The better approach is a flexible procurement strategy that balances cost certainty with the ability to benefit from changing market conditions.

Five Ways to Protect Your Ingredient Costs in 2027

First: Forecast ingredient demand early.

Reliable demand forecasts improve purchasing leverage, inventory planning, and shipping coordination. Manufacturers should work with their ingredient suppliers to develop realistic quarterly forecasts, particularly for high-volume sweeteners and functional ingredients. Forecasts do not have to be perfect. They simply need to be useful.

Second: Separate raw material pricing from transportation pricing.

Whenever practical, evaluate the commodity cost and freight cost independently. A fixed ingredient price does not necessarily require a fixed transportation rate. Separating these components can create opportunities to secure raw material availability while retaining flexibility in freight procurement.

Third: Evaluate inventory as a financial decision.

Inventory provides protection against transportation delays and supply interruptions. But inventory also consumes working capital. Carrying six months of raw materials to avoid a potential freight increase may not make financial sense if financing and storage costs exceed the savings. The objective is not to accumulate the largest inventory possible. It is to maintain enough inventory to protect production without unnecessarily tying up cash.

Fourth: Work with suppliers that understand the entire supply chain.

An ingredient supplier, like Icon Foods provide more than a price and a promised delivery date. We understand production lead times, international transportation, customs clearance, inventory positioning, and domestic fulfillment. We also love to explain how these variables affect delivered pricing.

We think that kind of visibility helps our customers make better purchasing decisions before problems become expensive.

A Different Procurement Strategy for Every Ingredient

At Icon Foods, we believe ingredient procurement should reflect the specific economics and supply risks of each ingredient category.

Monk Fruit

Monk fruit pricing is heavily influenced by agricultural supply, fruit quality, extraction yields, and processor availability. Transportation is important, but securing adequate raw material supply may be the more significant challenge.

Customers should consider forward purchasing agreements that protect ingredient availability while carefully evaluating the freight component.

Stevia

Stevia extracts offer considerable value because of their high sweetness potency and low use levels. Freight expenses may represent a relatively modest portion of finished-product economics, especially for high-purity glycosides.

Procurement decisions should prioritize product consistency, regulatory suitability, sensory performance, and reliable availability alongside delivered cost.

Erythritol

Erythritol is particularly sensitive to freight economics because it is typically used at relatively high inclusion levels and shipped in substantial quantities.

Container utilization, shipment scheduling, and domestic distribution efficiency can materially influence delivered pricing.

This makes erythritol a strong candidate for structured purchasing schedules and carefully negotiated transportation arrangements.

Allulose and Tagatose

These rare sugars present an interesting combination of growing market interest, evolving supply infrastructure, and relatively high usage levels compared with high-intensity sweeteners.

Manufacturers should evaluate production capacity, sourcing geography, regulatory requirements, freight economics, and inventory availability together.

Dietary Fibers

Soluble fibers, resistant dextrins, inulin, and other functional carbohydrates vary considerably in cost, bulk density, and inclusion level. Transportation efficiency can influence their economics, but functionality matters just as much.

Selecting a less expensive fiber that requires a higher inclusion rate, creates processing problems, or compromises finished-product quality is rarely a bargain. Procurement and formulation need to work together.

Why Formulators Should Care About Freight

Freight pricing may seem like something best left to purchasing departments and logistics managers. Not so fast. Ingredient selection directly influences transportation exposure. Consider two formulations designed to deliver comparable sweetness. One relies heavily on a bulk sweetener, while another uses a combination of bulk ingredients and high-intensity sweeteners to achieve the desired sweetness profile. The two systems may have substantially different ingredient weights, freight exposure, storage requirements, and total costs. This does not mean the lighter formulation is automatically better.

Taste, mouthfeel, functionality, regulatory requirements, and consumer expectations still determine whether a formulation succeeds. But transportation economics belong in the formulation conversation.

The most effective product development teams evaluate sensory performance, ingredient functionality, nutritional targets, processing requirements, and total delivered cost together. That’s how good formulations become commercially successful products.

How Icon Foods Helps Customers Navigate Volatility

At Icon Foods, we work at the intersection of ingredient science, sourcing, formulation, and supply chain management. Our objective is to help customers develop better products while protecting the economics required to manufacture them. That means looking beyond the quoted price per kilogram.

We help customers evaluate ingredient alternatives, optimize sweetener and fiber systems, anticipate supply requirements, and develop purchasing strategies aligned with their production forecasts. In some cases, the solution may involve securing forward inventory.

In others, it may involve adjusting purchasing schedules, evaluating alternative ingredient systems, or improving the relationship between ingredient cost and finished-product performance. We also recognize that the right purchasing strategy depends on the ingredient. A monk fruit supply agreement should not necessarily resemble an erythritol purchasing agreement.

A high-intensity stevia extract should not be evaluated using exactly the same transportation assumptions as a bulk rare sugar. The objective is to match the procurement strategy to the economics and risks of the ingredient.

Looking Ahead: Don’t Confuse Today’s Freight Price With Tomorrow’s Reality

Global ocean freight pricing will continue to respond to changing supply, demand, geopolitical conditions, and transportation efficiency. The current market reflects significant disruption, but it also contains the possibility of future rate normalization.

For food and beverage manufacturers planning their 2027 ingredient requirements, the opportunity is to prepare for both scenarios. Protect supply where availability is uncertain. Negotiate transportation intelligently. Monitor total landed cost. Maintain reasonable inventory levels. And most importantly, keep procurement, formulation, and finance working from the same set of assumptions. Because the goal is not simply to purchase ingredients at the lowest possible price.

The goal is to manufacture exceptional products at predictable, sustainable costs. And that’s a much better business strategy than crossing your fingers and hoping the next container arrives on time.

Whether you’re purchasing monk fruit, stevia, erythritol, allulose, tagatose, or functional fibers, Icon Foods can help you evaluate your ingredient requirements and develop a supply strategy that makes sense for your business.

Let’s review your 2027 forecasts, identify your greatest exposure to cost volatility, and build a plan that protects both product quality and profitability.

Market References

  • Bloomberg, Maersk’s Outlook for Global Trade, November 5, 2026.
  • A.P. Moller–Maersk, Maersk Converts Market Opportunities Into Significantly Higher Earnings and Raises Full-Year Guidance, November 5, 2026.
  • Reuters, Maersk Raises Outlook Again as AI Buildout, Port Congestion Keep Freight Rates High, November 5, 2026.

Market intelligence disclaimer: This article is provided for general educational and planning purposes. Freight rates, availability, customs charges, tariffs, and ingredient pricing vary by origin, destination, shipping lane, shipment timing, and contractual terms. Forward-looking statements reflect market possibilities rather than guaranteed outcomes. Customers should confirm current pricing, regulatory requirements, and contractual terms before making purchasing commitments.

Related reading: Monk Fruit Market Intelligence Bulletin: 2026 Harvest Update and 2027 Supply Outlook, Blanket POs: Boring on Paper. Absolutely Savage in Turbulent Times and Allulose at the Border.