Page 9 - Port of Hamburg Magazine 02.24

Finally, Wolberg takes a turn into a hall where cacao from West Africa is stored. “We’re the Swiss army knife at the Port of Hamburg - the all-rounders. There’s hardly anything we can’t do,” he concludes. This also includes the water-side handling of refriger- ated containers on behalf of the HHLA fruit and re- frigeration centre (HHLA FKZ), which operates around 30 percent of the terminal space at O’Swald- kai. The majority owner is HHLA, and the Belgian terminal operator Sea-Invest holds a 49-percent stake.
“One in four bananas eaten in Germany is tran- shipped by us,” says Axel Hoeckrich, managing di- rector of HHLA FKZ as well as the HHLA forwarding company Ulrich Stein. When he started at the for- warding company specialised in importing tropical fruits in 2007, there were still five banana ships at the quay wall. During the global economic crisis in 2007/2008, container shipping companies discov- ered the year-round business with high volumes.
“Since 2012, ship-
ping company
Maersk has been
working together
with the fruit im-
porter Fyffes,
which has done
away with its own refrigerated ships,” reports Hoeckrich. “Today, we handle about 400,000 tonnes of bananas each year, which come from several pro- ducing countries in Latin America.”
The HHLA FKZ consolidates banana boxes from the various container terminals at Hamburg, which larger container ships carry up the Elbe. The fight against drug imports plays an important part in these operations. Based on a risk analysis, banana samples have to go through a scanner. “Since there is particular focus on transports from South Ameri- ca, we have the highest scanning rate at the port,” he says.
PORT OF HAMBURG MAGAZINE 2/24 ALL-PURPOSE PORT
PAGE 09
Axel Hoeckrich
managing director at HHLA FKZ and HHLA-Spedition Ulrich Stein
New cars shortly before the heat treatment.
© HHLA / Dominik Reipka
© HHLA/Nele Martensen