When the supply chain plunges into darkness: the visibility crisis in global trade through a box of frozen food

When a Box of Frozen Food Disappears From the Map

On February 26, 2026, a container loaded with frozen food departed from Odesa, Ukraine, bound for the United Arab Emirates. Under normal circumstances, the journey would cross the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Suez Canal before finally arriving at Jebel Ali Port, taking about 30 to 35 days in total. However, as the Russia-Ukraine war continued to escalate, many shipments had already grown accustomed to first detouring to Constanța, Romania, before rejoining traditional shipping routes, with an estimated transit time of 45 to 50 days.

Yet this container did not follow any expected route.

Shortly after departure, on March 2, the shipping company imposed a $4,000 war risk surcharge due to tensions in the Middle East and rising risks on Gulf shipping routes. In the weeks that followed, the cargo was almost entirely "out of contact." When information finally emerged, the container had been diverted to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and then redirected to India, with an estimated arrival on April 25, after which it would still need to return to the UAE. Ultimately, it would arrive around April 30 at Khorfakkan Port before being transported by road to its final destination.

By the end of April, the container had been adrift at sea for more than 60 days, more than twice the normal cycle.

The Collapse of Visibility: More Than Just "Can't Find the Goods"

The core problem in this case is not simply a change of route or delay, but a systemic loss of supply chain visibility.

For the past few decades, global trade has been built on three assumptions: predictable routes, stable prices, and end-to-end visibility. Companies rely on these assumptions to manage inventory, plan cash flow, and sign contracts. However, geopolitical conflict is now eroding these foundations. When cargo "disappears" in transit, companies lose not only location information, but also the ability to make timely decisions. McKinsey's research has long pointed out that many companies lack end-to-end supply chain visibility, which directly weakens their ability to anticipate and respond to disruptions.

More critically, although information eventually surfaced, it came only after key routing decisions had already been made. This kind of "after-the-fact visibility" exposes a deeper flaw: the system no longer provides actionable, real-time information. The question is no longer "will disruptions happen," but "when they do, can the system maintain control?" The answer is becoming increasingly unsettling.

The Erosion of Contractual Stability: Risk Is Reallocated Mid-Route

In this case, additional fees were unilaterally imposed after the cargo had left port, fundamentally altering the economic structure of the transaction. This practice of "midstream contract changes" is becoming increasingly common amid geopolitical turbulence.

From a trade governance perspective, this introduces severe information and risk asymmetries. Cargo owners are often forced to absorb unexpected costs in order to keep supply chains running—especially for essentials such as food. Logistics providers, in turn, shift financial risk onto market participants that are even less equipped to manage it. In the long run, such conduct distorts market behavior: companies either factor uncertainty into prices, pushing up costs for consumers, or reduce their exposure to high-risk shipping routes, leading to restricted market access and reduced supply diversity.It is worth noting that the current international trade contract framework lacks enforceable binding standards for "mid-journey price increases" and "detours." Both the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Bank have noted in their research that geopolitical disruptions are eroding contractual reliability, yet international rules have not kept pace.

Dynamic rerouting: the other side of flexibility

Shipping routes are becoming highly dynamic. Shipping companies adjust routes in real time based on safety assessments, port congestion, and geopolitical risks. This flexibility is necessary in military or extreme scenarios, but it comes with consequences: transit time uncertainty increases significantly, coordination among supply chain parties becomes more difficult, and compliance documentation grows more complex—because vessels may pass through jurisdictions not originally planned.

For time-sensitive cargo—such as frozen foods—these uncertainties translate into direct economic losses. Capital is locked up in transit, inventory gaps emerge, sales opportunities are lost, and subsequent replenishment plans are disrupted. Industry analysis from S&P Global shows that port congestion, rerouting, and geopolitical instability have substantially increased transit time volatility and operational complexity across global supply chains.

What is even more troublesome is that cargo owners often have no say whatsoever in rerouting decisions. They can only passively accept the outcome while bearing the vast majority of the commercial risk.

The system was not designed for disruption

These phenomena point to a fundamental limitation: the existing trade and logistics system was designed on the premise of a relatively stable operating environment. International organizations have also acknowledged that the current trade framework is not fully adapted to sustained disruption and volatility. It assumes that routes are known in advance, prices are locked in at the time of contract signing, and cargo can be tracked continuously from origin to destination.

When these assumptions no longer hold, the system exhibits structural dysfunction. The trade system must operate in an environment of incomplete information and rapidly changing conditions—something it was never designed for. This widening gap between "design" and "reality" is the root cause of the current fragility in global supply chains.

From "optimization" to "adaptive leadership"

In this environment, the decision-making model of corporate leadership needs to shift. Traditional models based on efficiency optimization and forecasting fail when information is incomplete and the environment changes dramatically.

Nadiya Albishchenko, the author of this article, proposed the "Adaptive Trade Leadership Model" in recent research. The model emphasizes that decisions should not be built on the illusory assumption of "possessing complete information," but rather on the capacity to "act under constraints, absorb pressure, and sustain operational flow."

This is not about eliminating uncertainty, but about enabling organizations to survive within it. The focus shifts from "controlling every variable" to "managing outcomes under constrained conditions."

Policy implications: rebuilding the "resilient foundation" of the trade system

At the policy level, institutions such as the WTO and OECD have already emphasized the need to build more resilient and adaptive supply chains, but the pace of concrete measures has lagged far behind the speed of escalating risks.The most urgent task now is to establish mandatory transparency standards that require shipping companies and logistics operators to notify relevant parties in real time when changing routes or prices. Otherwise, cargo owners simply cannot make informed decisions.

At the same time, contract frameworks need to be systematically revised to distribute risks more fairly. Clear default rules should be set for mid-course change costs, responsibility for diversion decisions, and the sharing of demurrage and detention fees, so that risks do not fall disproportionately on any one segment of the supply chain.

Looking further ahead, resilience must become a core principle of trade system design. This means investing in digital tracking infrastructure so that end-to-end visibility shifts from "ideal" to "default"; it also means regulators must develop new rules that adapt to dynamic operating environments, rather than continuing to use old frameworks designed for stable periods.

Structural Transformation: Efficiency Is No Longer the Only Benchmark

This incident of a "missing" container is a microcosm of global trade entering a structural transformation. Though efficiency remains a long-term proposition, in an era of frequent geopolitical conflict, control, flexibility, and risk management have gradually replaced pure cost optimization as the new benchmarks for supply chain decision-making.

When a container cannot be located, what it reveals is not a technical deficiency of an individual company, but the operational limits of the entire global trading system under high pressure. The Ukraine-to-UAE route is just one of countless trade paths currently passing through "dark zones."

In the future, the competitiveness of global trade will no longer depend on who has the lowest transport costs or the fastest customs clearance, but on who can maintain decision-making capability when visibility is lost, who can keep supply chains running when contracts are overturned, and who can re-establish workable order amid the chaos of dynamic rerouting.

This shipment of frozen food will eventually reach its destination. But whether the global supply chain can move from "invisible" to "visible" remains an open question.