Five boats, one timetable and a lot of ice
Started in 2017 with one launch and a guesthouse that could not get vegetables.
Why we started with vegetables
Maanel began in 2017 because a guesthouse on the next island could not get produce that was still worth serving. Everything reached the atoll perfectly well and then spent four hours on a quay in the sun waiting for somebody's cousin with a dhoni.
That is the whole problem of the last leg here, and almost nobody was selling a solution to it. The long haul from Male is well served. The two hours at the end of it are done informally, by whoever is going that way, at whatever time they happen to leave.
So we run a timetable instead. Fixed hours, fixed circuits, insulated boxes with a logger in them, and a signature at every drop. We are more expensive than a favour from a friend with a boat and we are cheaper than a week of spoiled stock.
We now run five boats from a shed at Maamigili, two of them insulated, and we serve twenty three islands and resorts. The vegetables still leave at six in the morning.
The dispatch desk and the crews
Ismail Shakir
Ran a guesthouse for six years and spent most of it waiting on a quay. Started this in 2017 with one launch and the produce run.
Mariyam Haifa
Builds the circuits and answers the phone from five in the morning. She is the one who tells you an urgent launch is not worth the money.
Hassan Luthfee
Runs the shed and the chill room, packs the medicine boxes and reads every logger. He has refused four loads in eight years and been right f...
Ali Nihad
Twenty two years in these atolls. Decides whether a run sails in bad weather, and nobody argues with him about it.
How we keep things cold, and how you can check
How do you keep chilled goods cold?
Insulated boxes with frozen gel, packed full, plus two insulated hulls for frozen work with the load pre chilled rather than cooled on the way.
A half empty cool box warms several times faster than a full one, so we size the box to the load rather than using whatever is nearest.
Can I see what temperature my load reached?
Yes. Every chilled and frozen consignment travels with a logger and you get the record with the delivery note.
Medicine runs at two to eight degrees and frozen product at minus eighteen. Where a load has been out of range we tell you on the day, with the graph, rather than letting somebody find out later.
Would you refuse a load?
Yes, and we have. A chilled load that is already warm when we collect it cannot be rescued by a cold box: we would deliver a cold surface and a spoiled middle, with a temperature record saying everything was fine.
Four refusals in eight years, all of them medicine, all in the middle of the day in April.
Where does the cold chain usually break?
On the quay, not on the boat. Almost every failure we see is cargo standing in the sun waiting for a transfer.
That is why our hub has a chill room and why the runs leave early. Six in the morning is not a preference, it is the coolest four hours we have.
Come to the jetty office
Harbour Road, Maamigili. The desk is open from five in the morning, every day.