New hub concept in raw coffee logistics brings additional coffee shipments to Hamburg

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NKG Kala Hamburg has taken on full responsibility for raw coffee logistics on behalf of three Sara Lee roasting houses in Europe. Working closely together in the year 2008, the companies Decotrade, of Zug in Switzerland, and NKG Kala Hamburg worked out a plan for the optimisation of warehousing operations for three Sara Lee roasting houses in northern and eastern Europe. This involved a nine-month planning phase and the scheduling of numerous workshops. The concept has now to a large extent been realised in practice.

Generally speaking every roasting house for which Decotrade handles the purchasing of raw goods has its own warehousing system, puts together its mixtures for the market directly and then creates the specific end products. In future, however, NKG Kala Hamburg will be coordinating the entire flow of raw goods for northern and eastern Europe, which in the past was managed from Antwerp. This will include responsibility for container and truck management, all warehousing operations, creating mixtures and components for the individual sites based on prescribed requirements, quality assurance and dealing with customs duties and tax. This means that in future between 60,000 and 80,000 tons of raw coffee will be handled by NKG Kala in Hamburg for Decotrade.

The basis of this new ‘hub concept’ is an IT-supported integrated merchandise management system for all those involved in the value creation chain. This ensures a high degree of transparency and flexibility, as well as rapidity of response.

The five-year cooperation agreement that the contracting parties have just signed in Hamburg underlines their commitment to a long-term strategic partnership. Decotrade Managing Director Rudolf Schwab comments: ‘For Sara Lee, the Kala model is very much more than just a logistics concept. It opens up new and very interesting prospects right along the value creation chain, from the country of origin through to the roasting houses, and has triggered a fundamental change of view on the part of all the players involved in this chain.’ Günter Brockhaus, Managing Director of NKG Kala Hamburg, emphasises the innovative character of the project: ‘This “hub model”, which has long been a subject of discussion in the coffee industry, has now become a reality. With this step both companies have confirmed their pioneering role in the raw coffee logistics sector. We are delighted that this makes NKG Kala Hamburg an important and integral element in Decotrade’s raw coffee logistics.’

In the world coffee trade the Port of Hamburg plays a major part – as the biggest European seaport for coffee imports, a hub for deliveries to Scandinavia and a ‘gateway’ for central and eastern Europe, Austria and Switzerland. In the year 2008, 847,000 tons of coffee were imported via the Port of Hamburg. That represents an increase of some three percent on the year 2007. The Port of Hamburg also handles large quantities of coffee to be exported by sea. The port dispatched a total of 361,000 tons of coffee in 2008. The total amount of coffee handled at the Port of Hamburg in 2008 came to something like 1.21 million tons. The attractiveness of the Hanseatic metropolis for these multifarious coffee-related activities results from the long symbiosis here between trade, transport and the port. The combination of trading companies having innovative service strategies with port and warehousing firms that rely on the most up-to-date future-oriented service portfolio and smart logistics solutions will strengthen Hamburg’s leading position as a centre of the international coffee trade.

Neumann Group / NKG Kala Hamburg
As a result of the building of Hamburg’s HafenCity, the logistics company now going by the name of NKG Kala Hamburg GmbH moved to Hohe Schaar on the south side of the Port of Hamburg in 2006. Besides highly complex warehousing, goods handling and processing services, NKG Kala Hamburg offers its customers comprehensive service in all matters having to do with logistics. With a 7 percent share in the volume of exports worldwide and a 15 percent share in the volume of imports worldwide, the Neumann Kaffee Gruppe (NKG) [Neumann Coffee Group], to which NKG Kala belongs, is the leading enterprise in the world for raw coffee logistics services. About one in seven cups of coffee consumed will have been handled by NKG in raw form. NKG has around 2100 full-time staff on its payroll all over the world, in a variety of professional fields. Its annual sales revenue comes to 1.7 billion US dollars. In 2008 NKG Kala Hamburg handled ca. 290,000 tons, or some 14,500 containers of coffee. This corresponds to an approximate quantity of 43 billion cups of coffee. In 2009 the company anticipates a turnover of about 350,000 tons. Something like 40% of the coffee handled by NKG Kala Hamburg every year, or 90,000 tons, leaves Hamburg for destinations in northern, eastern and western Europe.

Contact:
NKG Kala Hamburg
Günter Brockhaus
Tel.: 0049 (0)40 36 120-610
e-mail: g.brockhaus@nkg-kala.com

The Sara Lee Corporation
After comprehensive restructuring, involving concentration on key business in the fields of foodstuffs, beverages, domestic equipment and body care products, many of the goods produced by the Sara Lee Corporation have become market leaders in their various sectors. Among the best known brands of its product portfolio are such names as Douwe Egberts, Senseo, Ambipur, Sanex and Bimbo. In the coffee market the Sara Lee Corporation, represented by the trading company Decotrade AG and numerous roasting houses in Europe and the USA, is one of the three biggest coffee roasting companies worldwide. In the past financial year Sara Lee had over 44,000 employees on its payroll in more than 40 different countries, and achieved a turnover in excess of 13 billion US dollars.

Contact:
Decotrade AG
Rudolf Schwab
Tel.: 0041 (0)41 726 1585
e-mail: rudolf.schwab@saralee.com