New Landgard Logistics- and Distribution Center offers ideal conditions for more efficiency

In the town of Striegistal in Saxony, the producer association Landgard has opened their new, state-of-the-art logistics center in June, together with the Saxon secretary of state for environment and agriculture, Thomas Schmidt, the mayor of Striegistal, Bernd Wagner, Veronika Bellmann, member of the German Bundestag, representatives of Landgards member businesses from East Germany, but also Poland and China, as well as neighbours, clients, business partners and representatives of Landgard.

The new location in the industrial park Berbersdorf combines the services of the previous locations in Chemnitz and Dresden in the new Landgard East Fruit & Vegetable GmbH. The teams in charge of maintaining the cash-markets and catering clients are currently still available for any questions of their customers in the offices in Chemnitz, Dresden and Leipzig. It is currently still being assessed, whether the 'old sites' will be kept in business.

The new Frischelogistikzentrum (Freshness Logistics Center) in Berbersdorf offers around 80,000 square meters of potential for future expansions and ideal provision of services in the region East. Landgard will the ideal central warehouse and store delivery for retailers in Stiegistal; they offer flexible freshness logistics, a number of different packaging services and professional quality management. Every year, around 120,000 tons of fresh fruit and vegetables from regional, domestic and international direct producers will be handled in this facility and supplied to customers in retail, wholesale, food retail and discounters. 

"For us as a modern marketing producers' association and a service provider with added value, this new facility is an important strategic step towards the future. Especially our clients and members will profit from our new storage and logistics capacity. Those will enable us to handle and supply, on the one hand, international products - coming from Eastern Europe, Greece, Spain and Asia - and, on the other hand, local goods from our own production, with a great focus on freshness," Armin Rehberg, chairman of Landgard eG, said during the festive opening ceremony. "At the same time, the grand opening today kicks off an extensive rethinking of our logistics structures. This coming year of 2018, we are planning on optimizing the structures in Northern Germany and restructure in the East as well."

Jens Pawlik, CEO of Landgard East Fruit & Vegetable GmbH on the topic of the advantages of the new location: "By combining our capacities in the Eastern region here in Berbersdorf, we will become more efficient. Our facility as a central reloading point will benefit from the great infrastructure in this area with access to the A4 and the transport axes A14, A13 and A72. On the other hand, the size of the areal has enabled us to furthermore build a multi-center for packaging with the newest technologies. This will help us to supply our clients even more individually and target-oriented." The state-of-the-art, 1,000 square meter packing facility was directly integrated into the 10,000 square meter logistics hall of the first construction phase. This way, arriving goods from the Landgard members are on the shortest route to be packed in any of the common packaging options, according to the needs of the customers - from kilo-trays to Carry-Fresh bags.

From now on, 125 experienced contact persons from the previous locations in Chemnitz and Dresden, as well as new employees of the Landgard East Fruit & Vegetable GmbH will be available for any questions about fresh fruit and veggies. Another 20 jobs are being created by the end of the year, covering different areas of responsibility, and the company is planning on hiring regional workers. For the future, the producer association Landgard is putting their trust into specialists and young talents from Striegistal and the surrounding towns. 

In order for the grand opening to take place, the contracted business LIST Bau Bielefeld had to 'put the pedal to the metal'. Despite the hard winter in Striegistal, the 10,000 square meter logistics center was finished in less than nine months. "The construction site was put on hold for a good six weeks in January and February," says Fabian Stratman, project manager at LIST Bau Bielefeld, "after that we packed the agenda tightly enough to make up for about half the time we had lost." Especially during the last four months everybody involved had to give their all, to meet the deadline. During this time, Landgard eG already started installing the cooling systems in the newly built facility, parallel to construction work.

Within the scope of their extensive strategy for sustainability, the new facility was equipped with resource-efficient and environmentally friendly technology. Aside from power-saving LED lights, the environmentally friendly NH3-refrigeration plant with a natural refrigerant and brine as carrier medium for high energy efficiency and low pollution levels. In the future, it might also be possible to completely meet the demand for energy with solar power. To achieve this, the new facility has the necessary requirements for a later installation of highly efficient photovoltaic system already built in. This way, Landgard is perfectly prepared for their future of healthy, sustainable growth in the Eastern part of Germany.

For further information:
Landgard Service GmbH
Veilingstr. A1
47638 Straelen-Herongen
Tel: +49 2839 59-00
Fax: +49 2839 59-1999
www.landgard.de