Stuffing (container)
Stuffing is the act of loading cargo into a shipping container. The operation includes placing cargo, bracing with dunnage, sealing the container, and producing the stuffing report that documents what went in.
Manual stuffing — workers and forklifts placing cargo inside the container — is the dominant method for most cargo types. Mechanical stuffing (conveyor-fed) exists for bulk and free-flowing products.
'Live stuffing' means the container is loaded while the chassis sits at the warehouse, with the trucker waiting. 'Drop stuffing' means the container is dropped at the warehouse, stuffed at the warehouse's pace, and picked up later. Drop is cheaper per container but requires more chassis time.
The stuffing list — sometimes called a container load list — documents the per-box detail of what went inside, in what order, on what side. It is the most reliable inventory source for the contents of a sealed container.
LCL containers are stuffed at a CFS (container freight station) by the freight forwarder, combining multiple shippers' cargo. The forwarder produces a house BOL per shipper and a master BOL for the whole container.
Related terms
- FCL vs. LCL (full container load vs. less than container load)FCL means the shipper has booked a full container exclusive to their cargo. LCL means the cargo shares a container with other shippers' cargo, consolidated by a freight forwarder and deconsolidated at destination.
- DunnageDunnage is the loose material used to brace, separate, and secure cargo inside a container, rail car, or trailer. Common examples are wood blocks, inflatable airbags, paper void fill, and reusable bracing systems.
- TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit)TEU is the standard measure of container shipping capacity: one TEU equals a single 20-foot ISO container. A 40-foot container is two TEU; vessel and port capacity are reported in TEU.
Tired of looking these up by hand?
PaperFlo builds custom document automation that extracts these fields cleanly from supplier PDFs, so your team can stop typing them in.
Book a discovery call