Germany’s DHL has opened a new logistics platform specialising in the transportation of fruits and vegetables in the town of Dos Hermanas near Seville in southern Spain.
The €1m centre, which has 3,000m2 of coldstorage capacity and has been in operation since the end of 2016, will serve the whole of the Andalusia region, handling deliveries to national retailers as well as exports to France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and other European markets.
This is the group’s third logistics centre in Spain, the other two being in Villanueva de Castellón, Valencia, and reflects its strategy of moving to new production areas following its entry into the Spanish market six years ago.
“At first we were working with just one or two pallets and the business was growing without any physical structure,” says Rubén Aliseda, director of retail and Grupag division of DHL Supply Chain Iberia. “Now we have a large new warehouse specialising in fruits and vegetables.”
Aliseda said he also hoped the platform would attract companies looking to ship stonefruit to China by rail.
DHL handled around 300,000 tonnes of produce in Andalusia last year and expects this to increase to 330,000 tonnes in 2017 as its customer base expands.
