While many family businesses worry about finding a successor, Managing Director Horst Hagel would like to grow the port company Louis Hagel. That is because at the 13,000-square metre “small” site at the heart of the Port of Hamburg, maximum efficiency has long been squeezed out of every available square metre. The port handling company has thus been able to handle around 800,000 tonnes, dispatch a range of ships from all around the world, load and unload various freight trains as well as load around 10,000 trucks in the last year alone.

"My grandfather

founded the company

back in 1872 ."

Horst Hagel

Managing Director at Louis Hagel
with Sandra Reidock

Although officially founded in Hamburg in 1878, the port enterprise Louis Hagel has actually been around for longer than that. “My grandfather founded the company back in 1872, but the company was only entered in the commercial register in 1878,” explains Managing Director Horst Hagel. Established as a carriage company and expanded to furniture transport several years later, it already began specialising in port handling operations for bulk cargo at Hamburg’s inland port in 1900.

At the beginning of the 1920s, a hundred railway cars could be handled in shift work every day. By the Second World War, the capacity of the company had grown tremendously – with numerous stables and furniture depots, around 60 horses, 90 carts and furniture vans, trucks and tractors, ten electric cranes as well as 6,500 square metres of roofed storage space and two commercial buildings. Since then, this important segment for the Port of Hamburg has been reorganised time and again.

For instance in 1968, due to the insufficient depth of the water and the increasing size of ships, the company moved from its former site at Hamburg’s inland port to Reiherstieg which offered a water depth of eight metres at the time. This was where dry and liquid bulk cargo – such as grain, coal, fertiliser, ore, oilseeds and feed – were handled over the course of many years. The company has meanwhile specialised in fertiliser.

Originally, however, it wasn’t Horst Hagel, but his older brother – 12 years his senior – who took over the family business. When he became indebted, Hagel took over the family company at the age of 47; he had previously worked for more than 10 years at Commerzbank as a trained shipping and chartering broker. Hagel then restructured the business and continuously grew it into the company we know today.

A multi-generational business For over 30 years, Hagel has been the third generation to manage the company together with his wife Gisela – and since the 1990s with his daughters Sandra Reidock, Catharina Kunz and his son Philip Hagel. Among the 15 employees in total are two grandchildren, now representing the fifth generation. However, there is no strict division of tasks at the traditional company. “Everyone does every-thing here,” emphasises Reidock.

At 84 years of age, Hagel still works at the company every day and continues to take little holiday. From his office on the first floor of the building, which was extended four years ago, he can look out onto the family business that has developed into the fertiliser terminal today – in large part thanks to him.

„It is possible to
load ships
of up 220 metres
in length."

During our visit, from the southern window of the office building, he sees a train carrying 1,700 tonnes of fertiliser produced by Domo Caproleuna in Leuna, Saxony-Anhalt. The 26 rail cars contain ammonium sulphate – required in agriculture – that is currently being unloaded by four employees. “On the screen, I can see at a glance whether all the processes are running smoothly,” says Hagel. After all, many processes have also long been completely digitised in bulk cargo handling. “But we still need people to unload the cargo from the trains,” Reidock stresses.

The company began specialising in fertiliser in the 1990s. Thanks to German reunification, Piesteritz nitrogen works (SKW) from Saxony-Anhalt could be won over as the first major customer. Their factory is around 400 kilometres away on the Elbe. With a handling contract signed, it was already possible for Hagel to handle enormous quantities for the entire urea export business of SKW in the first few years. As a result, there was soon demand for storage space. “I invested 8 million deutschmarks here in 1998, as I always saw prospects for the future,” Hagel explains.

Silo 1 was constructed in 1998. With optimal capacity utilisation, it offers a capacity of around 25,000 tonnes in total with overfill in the four separate boxes. A scraper is used to push the product up to form a material cone in the silo, allowing it to be stored carefully and without dust forming.

When Hagel looks east out of the window, he can see a 104-metre-long black pontoon spanning 2,400 square metres, which is used for exporting fertiliser. After being constructed in Belgium, it was towed here via the North Sea. The pontoon is called Catharina since it arrived in Hamburg on his daughter’s birthday. The company has used it to create a floating quay wall not otherwise found on the premises.

A pipe system that extends 60 metres into the Reiherstieg quay establishes a link to the ship loader with conveyor belts. This can be moved on the pontoon and makes it possible to load ships of up to 220 metres in length and 28 metres in width. The water is 11 metres deep here. A ship was dispatched with a load of 40,000 tonnes here for the first time in 2020.

If Hagel looks further towards Hamburg, he can see a crane mooring for seafaring vessels and inland ships behind. The import business lay dormant for a while as the water depth was no longer sufficient for larger seafaring vessels. However, a win-win deal was reached with the HPA in 2014. The dilapidated embarkment was redeveloped and the construction of a new crane in deeper water was funded. Due to the additional investment of around 5 million euros, seafaring vessels can now also be dispatched here – with water depth of up to 11 metres.

In April 2024, a ship was then dispatched with a 37,000-tonne load for the first time at the crane mooring. With a maximum width of 11 metres and a length of 100 metres, inland ships can tether beside a seafaring vessel beneath the floating crane platform. Incoming goods can therefore be transhipped across vessels, stored in silos as well as loaded into trucks and rail cars after weighing.

Transhipment to trucks, rail cars and container ships

For the import business, a 12-tonne grab crane is used to drop goods from a slight height over a hopper at the same height as the crane bridge. In rainy conditions, the hopper can be protected under a moving roof by remote control. The goods are gently transported to a container scale on land via a closed system of conveyor belts, allowing trucks and rail cars to be quickly loaded.

Alternatively, the import goods can be temporarily stored in Silo 3. The concrete silo entered operation in 2014 and features two identical silo cells that can each store up to around 10,000 tonnes of up to four separately sorted types of fertiliser. Together with Silo 1 and 2, this results in a total storage capacity of approximately 45,000 tonnes for fertiliser.

The fact that a silo is empty happens sometimes, but should not be misinterpreted. “Our storage space is continuously booked out by our long-standing customers,” notes Reidock. Goods can be stored for any time from a day to six months. “We would like to have more storage space to meet demand from our customers and we would also invest a considerable amount into the location,” explains Hagel.

Everyone at the company is proud of the cleanliness throughout the site. However, the corrosive and hygroscopic fertilisers are a challenge to store and handle, as they damage material. “For this reason, we have gradually replaced the normal steel in most construction components with stainless steel, such as the conveyor belt substructure, and parts of the roof structure with wood,” says Reidock. But more could still be done: “We could handle three to four times the amount we do currently, and I would also be willing to invest tens of millions of euros in this area,” Hagel says. This isn’t possible on the current property, he continues, due to the limited space. Hagel is therefore interested in extending the property – a plan also supported by his customers. “Reiherstieg is ideal because it doesn’t silt up and its water depth of 11 metres is also suitable for large ships. But we would need more storage space. That is why we have been seeking the approval of the city for a larger site area for quite some time,” emphasises Hagel.

His grandson Julian adds: “I have grown up with this company. My great-great-grandfather founded this business more than 150 years ago and I now see my future here. But if we have no possibility to extend our site, there is a danger that Hamburg will lose more handling volume to competing ports. For instance, we dispatched four 30,000-tonners in April that also had other ports of discharge besides Hamburg, such as Antwerpen or Szczecin, because we lack sufficient storage space.”