A 20ft container of dehydrated onion cubes out before it weighs out
2026-09-04
Buyers new to the dehydrated category often ask for a price on “one container, around 25 MT”, carrying over a habit from dense commodities. Dehydrated onion rarely works that way. The cargo is light and bulky, so a standard 20ft box fills up long before it reaches its payload limit — it cubes out rather than weighing out.
Bulk density is what drives this. Powder is the densest form of the line and flakes and kibbled onion are considerably lighter for the same volume, because you are shipping a lot of air between the pieces. Two orders for the same tonnage in different cuts can therefore need very different container counts, and a quote built on tonnage alone will be wrong for one of them.
The practical consequence is that pack format is a commercial term, not a detail. Compressed bales, cartons and drums fill a container differently, and a buyer who wants loose flakes in cartons is buying more freight per kilo of onion than one taking powder in bags. Sea freight is charged on the box, so that difference sits in the landed cost whether or not anyone discussed it.
MOQ across the trade varies widely for exactly this reason. Small trial quantities are commonly quoted in the tens of kilos, bulk orders in the hundreds of kilos to a metric ton or more, and full-container export in whatever tonnage that cut and pack actually stows. Anyone who quotes you a single universal MOQ for “dehydrated onion” without asking which cut is not costing the freight properly.
So put four things on the enquiry: the cut (kibbled, chopped, flakes, granules or powder), the pack you want it in, the quantity you actually need, and the discharge port. With those we can tell you whether your volume is a part load, a full 20ft, or a case where switching cut or pack changes the landed cost more than the unit price does.
If you are not sure yet, say so. It is a reasonable thing not to know on a first import, and it is cheaper to work out at the enquiry stage than after a booking.