AtomicUK

Could anyone recommend from relatively recent personal experience, container shipping companies that operate out of south Texas on the Gulf Coast to & from the UK?

Thank you in advance.

notaclue

Can't recommend any companies, but I can tell you to arrange it far in advance. I was told that containers are back logged beyond belief with Covid disruption and things are only starting to move again.

lizzyq

Are you looking for a freight forwarder rather than a moving company? When we shipped from the UK to the USA we used https://www.futureforwarding.us/ who had been our company's shipper and customs broker of choice for the best part of 20 years. Their US office is in Atlanta, GA but they had no problems getting our containers to us in central Pennsylvania. The 20' container we purchased outright, the 40' we rented so had about 3 hours to load it in the UK and 3 hours to get it unloaded in PA. The pics below show I prepared my pallets back in the UK. All the pallets were "presswood" so there were no phytosanitary issues with them. every pallet was pallet wrapped, strapped and the labelled with the pallet number which tied up with the inventory for customs and insurance.

Pulaski

It wouldn't be usual to contract directly with a container shipping company, I am not even sure it would be possible, unless you are shipping many containers and continuously. A freight forwarder will act as your agent, and will get your container(s) onto the next available ship heading in the right direction, taking pricing and timing factors into consideration, as well as arranging for collection and delivery of your shipment from/ to locations of your choosing - I have had some shipments delivered to my home, and collected another directly from the local airport bonded warehouse myself.

With a feight forwarder you would be expected at least to package your own things, and probably palletize them, as per Lizzyq's things, and perhaps even load the container, if you are shipping an entire container. If you are loading the container, you will probably only be given two hours to load it, which is going to be a significant constraint unless you have use of a loading dock. Even if you are a competent fork lift driver, and have a pallet truck/jack, loading a 40ft container in two hours would be a fair task if you have to lift every pallet into the container using a fork lift. Doable, certainly, but a fair task, and not to be underestimated.