Freight forwarding Nantes – transport to and from Czechia

Food first

For most Czech buyers, Nantes means food. The area around the city is France's largest growing region for lamb's lettuce, and the sandy soils along the Loire also produce lettuce, leeks, radishes and greenhouse tomatoes. South-east of the city lie the vineyards of Muscadet, a dry white wine. Pays de la Loire and neighbouring Brittany are among France's main producers of milk, butter, cheese and meat, sea salt is harvested on the coast at Guérande, and Nantes has a long biscuit and confectionery tradition.

The city's wholesale food market, one of the largest in France, moved a few years ago from the centre to Rezé on the south bank of the Loire. Together with the surrounding packing stations and cold stores, it is where most export vegetables are loaded.

Keeping it cold for 1,400 km

Fresh produce and dairy from Nantes have roughly 1,400–1,500 km to travel to Prague, a long run for chilled cargo. The details that make the difference:

Chilled groupage is available only to a limited extent, so for smaller volumes a shared reefer with several pickups in the region often works better. Muscadet and other alcoholic drinks are excise goods and travel with an electronic accompanying document; in summer they should go temperature-controlled.

The Loire estuary: port, shipyards and aircraft

Downstream, between Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, lies the port of Nantes–Saint-Nazaire, one of France's main Atlantic ports, with a container terminal at Montoir-de-Bretagne, an oil refinery at Donges, an LNG terminal and berths for grain and animal feed. Saint-Nazaire builds large cruise ships and components for offshore wind farms, and aircraft fuselage and wing sections are produced in both Nantes and Saint-Nazaire. Non-food cargo to the Czech Republic therefore includes:

• aerospace components and tooling, often by express or dedicated truck,
• marine and mechanical equipment, steel structures,
• goods from overseas containers discharged at Montoir,
• animal feed and agricultural inputs.

Czech exports to western France include machinery, car parts, glass, building materials and furniture, which keeps trucks coming to the region and helps with return capacity.

Route and timing

From Nantes the route takes the A11 via Angers and Le Mans, then either passes Paris or runs further south via Orléans and Troyes, crosses Lorraine and Saarland into Germany and follows the A6 via Nuremberg to the Rozvadov border. A single driver needs about 3 working days. Groupage pallets of ambient goods take 4–6 working days; see our pallet service. French motorway tolls and the German truck toll are included in the freight calculator result; the expressways of neighbouring Brittany are toll-free, which helps when a Nantes pickup continues to a second stop in Brittany.

France bans trucks over 7.5 t from Saturday 22:00 to Sunday 22:00 and Germany on Sundays and holidays, so on a three-day run we prefer Monday or Tuesday loadings. Packing stations load early in the morning so produce leaves on the day of harvest. The Nantes ring road with the Cheviré bridge over the Loire is congested at peak hours, and the port terminals at Montoir and Donges require pre-booked slots and pre-notified vehicles. Small Muscadet growers rarely have a dock and load from the side by forklift.