NYK Brings The BBC Box Home to the UK via Southampton

In the early hours of 22 October 2009 The BBC Box arrived into DP World’s Southampton terminal onboard NYK VIRGO with a cargo of cat food.

BBC News has tracked one container, (NYKU8210506), around the world for a year to tell the story of globalization and the world economy.  It has been a year which has seen vast changes in global trade, as the project began the week before Lehman Brothers collapsed.  Since leaving the UK, The BBC Box has circumnavigated the globe travelling 48,000 miles by sea and 4,000 miles by land.  It has crossed continental North America, been to Asia and South America and passed through the Suez Canal twice.

Campbell Mason, Managing Director, DP World Southampton said: 

“As The BBC Box started its journey from Southampton back in September last year, we were only too happy to welcome it home onboard the NYK Virgo in the early hours of this morning.

The BBC Box has helped raise awareness of the vital role that containerised transport plays in facilitating global trade.  In addition, it has highlighted the intermodal connections within the supply chain which work together to enable the efficient flow of cargo.”

Svein Steimler, Executive VP of NYK Group Europe Limited and COO of its Liner and RORO Divisions commented:

“This has been a fascinating project and one which NYK has been proud to be involved in, on behalf of the global container shipping industry.  We live in an increasingly interconnected world, made ever more comfortable by the global trade of containerised goods.  Yet the industry has not been proactive enough in explaining the importance of container shipping to the wider public – whether they are urban Chinese enjoying Scotch whisky in Shanghai, Midwestern Americans watching baseball on flat-screen televisions in Kansas, or British pensioners feeding their cats in Manchester.  They, like all consumers, are totally reliant upon the global container industry.  We hope that through The BBC Box, we have increased the awareness of this indispensable industry.”