The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

by Marc Levinson

The concept was costed out on Ballentine Beer, which McLean Trucking hauled from Newark. Analysts for the Port of New York Authority calculated that sending the beer to Miami on board a traditional coastal ship, including a truck trip to the port, unloading, stacking in a transit shed, removal from the transit shed, wrapping in netting, hoisting aboard ship, and stowage, would cost four dollars a ton, with unloading at the Miami end costing as much again. The container alternative—loading the beer into a container at the brewery and lifting the container aboard a specially designed ship—was estimated to cost twenty-five cents a ton. Container shipping would be 94 percent cheaper than breakbulk shipping of the same product, even allowing for the cost of the container.