Freight Forwarding Group Extends Food Logistics Services

GERMANY – Kempten headquartered freight forwarding group Dachser, has spent around €50 million in the past year or so investing at three sites in its home country. The money was found to support its food logistics services to service the launch of the European Food Network, which we highlighted last month.

The three sites, Langenau, Kornwestheim, and Schönefeld, are extensions of the companies services in the regions specifically tailored to that industry sector. The 5,200 m² transit terminal and 7,500 m² high bay storage facility has been operating in Langenau since October 2012 and offers room for up to 15,000 pallet spaces. Over the last few years, Dachser’s Swabian facility, just off the A7 autobahn, has evolved into one of the largest food warehouses in the corporation: currently in Langenau, a total of 54,000 food-laden pallets can be stored in various temperature zones.

Dachser has steadily expanded its food logistics business in Kornwestheim near Stuttgart as well, so that after only eight years, it became urgently necessary to relocate into a larger transit terminal, whilst at Dachser’s Logistics Centre Berlin, in Schönefeld a 7,200 square metre transit terminal for food was put into operation in June. This facility allows 76 trucks to be loaded and unloaded simultaneously. Alfred Miller, Managing Director of Dachser Food Logistics, commented:

“Dachser Food Logistics has grown steadily over the past few years; in 2012 alone, we achieved an increase in sales of over 13%. We anticipate additional growth momentum with the launch of the European Food Network and the vivengo product group on October 1. In preparation for this, we had to acquire additional capacity in a timely manner—as we did in Langenau, Kornwestheim and Schönefeld for example. This is the only way we can maintain stable operations in our network during the peak capacity periods of four-day weeks, and offer our customers a consistently high level of service quality at the same time.”