ZEITFRACHT is a modern, medium-sized family business in its third generation with around 6,300 employees. As a logistics service provider, the company has been firmly established in the national and international logistics industry for over 90 years. It has made a name for itself in Europe as one of the leading providers of system transport. Other core competencies include fulfilment, media logistics and retail logistics. In addition, ZEITFRACHT has developed into a group of companies that also offers products and services in the areas of aviation, marine, building services and consulting.
Sustainability has a long tradition in the Zeitfracht Group. As a third-generation family business, Zeitfracht has always been committed to passing on a healthy and sustainable company from one generation to the next. We view sustainability as a holistic issue. Based on the 3-pillar approach, we take into account the ecological and economic as well as the social components. Thus, it has always been close to our hearts to make a positive contribution to social concerns and the environment through our entrepreneurial activities.
THIS IS WHAT WE STAND FOR
Being open, taking responsibility and achieving the highest quality – ZEITFRACHT is the preferred service provider for system transport in Germany and Europe for its customers through reliable performance, partnership, innovation and added value. Our success is based on quality, trust, openness and transparency, team spirit as well as the responsibility and involvement of everyone in our group of companies. Our corporate values determine our daily work, the way we meet challenges and deal with our employees, customers and business partners.
Our commitment to quality is central to our business. The high standard we have achieved is the result of this self-image and at the same time an obligation: we measure our behaviour and performance against the highest standards. This applies to every employee within his or her area of responsibility. In order to achieve the highest quality standards, we are constantly working on optimising our processes and structures for the benefit of our customers. This applies to our services as well as to our products and our management.
Our relationships are guided by a spirit of partnership, mutual support and a shared understanding of trusting cooperation. We stand up for each other and loyally support decisions made. In doing so, we work closely together in partnership and support each other. We solve problems together and constructively, because partnership enables us to move many things.
Our employees, their individual skills and their commitment are our most valuable asset. Each and every one of us bears responsibility for his or her area of responsibility and our common goals. In order to achieve these reliably and bindingly, we attach great importance to the involvement of our employees in our plans. Our actions are always based on partnership, employee and customer orientation. In order to meet the demands of the market at all times, we remain innovative and are constantly developing. Responsibility determines our entrepreneurial actions.
Trust is the basis of our work and our daily interaction. We strive for a long-term cooperation with our employees, customers and cooperation partners that is based on trust and includes security and reliability. Trust thrives on credibility, transparency and authenticity, which we show to our employees and business partners. In return, we commit ourselves to the utmost care and responsibility. Last but not least, our decades of success are based on our experience, because experience gives security and security creates trust. We earn and maintain this trust through honesty and reliable performance. What we promise, we keep.
Our actions are justified, comprehensible and transparent. The management and the supervisors on site communicate our strategy and our goals clearly and understandably for everyone. In this way, we promote the participation of all employees and support goal-oriented action throughout the company. Transparency makes our actions understandable, creates reliability and mutual trust.
Openness and trust are part of our corporate culture and the basis of our employee, partner and customer relationships. We cultivate a corporate culture of mutual dialogue: We always act and communicate honestly and objectively. We accept different opinions, deal with them constructively and encourage our employees and business partners to address their concerns and ideas openly and directly. We see constructive criticism as an incentive for innovation and further development. Such active and open communication facilitates cooperation and prevents conflicts. It contributes to a positive working atmosphere and creates a climate of mutual trust.
MOVING THINGS – FOR OVER 90 YEARS
ZEITFRACHT can look back on a varied history spanning more than 90 years.
Horst Walter Schröter was born on 2 May 1927 in Stendal in the Altmark region. In the same year, his father, master butcher Walter Schröter, founds a haulage business to offer a feed trade for the region. The young Horst Walter grows up among the lorries and buses of the fast-developing haulage company. A time full of formative experiences.
After the end of the war, a new beginning begins. The Schröters assembled new motor vehicles and buses from war-damaged lorries, the remains of which were found on the banks of the Elbe. According to the motto: „Make one out of four“, 17 vehicles are built in this way.
The haulage business begins to roll again and from 1949 a regular service between Berlin and Stendal is established in the newly founded GDR.
The GDR expropriates the Schröter haulage company. The reason: during a state inspection, 312 litres of diesel were found to be too much in the Schröter fleet. A difference to the official figures for which Walter Schröter is sent to prison.
Horst Walter Schröter no longer sees any prospects in Stendal. He flees to the American sector in West Berlin. On the night of 12 December he breaks through the border checkpoint at Glienicke Bridge with a friend and two trucks. His wife and daughter follow him a short time later.
The GDR expropriates the Schröter haulage company. The reason: during a state inspection, 312 litres of diesel were found to be too much in the Schröter fleet. A difference to the official figures for which Walter Schröter is sent to prison.
Horst Walter Schröter no longer sees any prospects in Stendal. He flees to the American sector in West Berlin. On the night of 12 December he breaks through the border checkpoint at Glienicke Bridge with a friend and two trucks. His wife and daughter follow him a short time later.
Having arrived in West Berlin, 24-year-old Horst Walter Schröter ventures a new start with his wife. At a time when car yards – the birthplaces of long-distance transport – were springing up like mushrooms in West Germany, they became one of the main hubs for the distribution of long-distance transport orders.
The Schröter haulage company grows with the variety of products to be transported. Horst Walter Schröter knows that he has to leave the enclave of West Berlin if his company is to grow any further. Schröter now focuses on long-distance transport.
The breakthrough comes with an order from the German company Nativ AG: empty gas cylinders for lorries with LPG engines are to be collected, filled in Kassel and delivered to the filling stations in the greater Hanover area.
Since then, growth-oriented post-war Germany has brought him one order after another.
The Schröter haulage company is on an expansion course and begins to buy up other haulage companies from the 1960s onwards. Horst Walter Schröter’s reputation in the industry grows.
ZEITFRACHT was founded in 1962. The starting point is the order to transport newspapers and magazines from West Germany to West Berlin. This marks the beginning of the group of companies.
The ZEITFRACHT swing is introduced as a sign of change. The transition from Spedition Schröter to ZEITFRACHT is more than just a name change: the name stands for the idea of tying transport to guaranteed time windows. The motto „Just in Time“ is born.
Horst Walter Schröter has the idea of a private parcel service. Particularly in the area of small-value items, there is an increasing desire to have them transported by forwarders rather than by the post office.
Four years later, the parcel service idea becomes reality. 18 independent companies form a cooperation community and divide up the federal territory according to postcodes. The agreement also includes territorial protection as well as a territorial obligation.
Together they guarantee that every parcel between 2.5 and 20 kilograms handed over to them will be delivered to its destination within 48 hours at the latest.
The community is run by an independent company with its own management. On 1 April, the first private German parcel service, DPD, thus begins its work.
Schröter significantly advances a new development in freight forwarding: the swap body. This invention makes it possible to change the box to be loaded like a container. This gives the customer more time for loading. Downtimes are minimised. To this day, these swap bodies are a centrepiece of the logistics system and are correspondingly standardised and barcode-capable.
The Wall fell in 1989. After German reunification in 1990, Horst Walter Schröter returned to his home town of Stendal. His father’s haulage company, which had been expropriated more than 35 years before, was now VEB Kraftverkehr Stendal, Haldensleben. In 1991 he buys the company back from the Treuhand.
The French Post becomes DPD’s major shareholder with 83.32 percent. The British Royal Mail acquires Dachser’s 10.47 percent share. Of the founding members, only ZEITFRACHT still holds the remaining 6.21 percent at this point.
Dr Wolfram Simon-Schröter takes over the management of ZEITFRACHT as CEO.
In addition, the group of companies takes over 49 percent of the shares in HVT, Haus- und Versorgungstechnik Potsdam.
The ZEITFRACHT Group sells its last founding DPD company shares to the French postal company La Poste.
At the same time, the company expands its logistics division and acquires Döpke Transportlogistik.
The expansion of the logistics division of the ZEITFRACHT Group continues with the acquisition of TLM Transport & Logistik.
In addition, the group of companies enters the new business field of aviation with the acquisition of WDL-Aviation. HVT is also now fully integrated into the ZEITFRACHT Group.
SPESA Spedition is acquired from insolvency and continues to operate as SPESA Zeitfracht Logistik.
In addition, ZEITFRACHT Logistik expands its range of activities with the addition of road feeder services.
In August, the ZEITFRACHT Group takes over OPUS Marine with eight special ships.
As of August, WDL Aviation flies cargo flights with the BAe 146-300QT freighters.
WDL Aviation expands its fleet and acquires its first Embraer E190 in March.
ZEITFRACHT is acquiring LGW (Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter) from Lufthansa as of 01 April 2019. The fleet includes 17 Dash8 Q400 aircraft.
ZEITFRACHT acquires Germany’s largest book logistics company and book wholesaler Koch, Neff und Volckmar (KNV) on 1 August. All 1,600 employees at the three locations in Erfurt, Leipzig and Stuttgart will be taken over.
The company’s aviation activities will be spun off from the Group under a new brand and henceforth managed independently as German Airways. The two airlines WDL Aviation and LGW will remain legally and economically independent companies.
LGW has to file for insolvency in self-administration. During the Corona pandemic, air traffic also collapsed due to massive travel restrictions. As a result, LGW’s exclusive partner terminated the long-term wet lease contract.
coconad GmbH, a creative agency with a focus on the areas of communication, content and advertising, is now part of the ZEITFRACHT Group. As an expert in the field of e-commerce and online marketing, coconad GmbH advises and supports its clients in the conception of web projects and the implementation of individual webshop solutions, among other things.
The full-service provider First Wise, a third-generation family business, becomes part of the ZEITFRACHT Group. As an intermediary between industry and trade, this supplies more than 1,800 online and retail traders across Europe with electronic products from over 30 brand manufacturers. This also includes the computer and video game accessories of the renowned own brand Speedlink.
In addition to complete fulfilment, First Wise ZEITFRACHT offers its customers a wide range of services from POS solutions to marketing and services.
ZEITFRACHT acquires a stake in the publishing and media company VEMAG. The Cologne-based publishing group employs 180 people at four locations and manages the logistics of several million books per year with the help of its Bergheim high-bay warehouse.
ZEITFRACHT becomes majority shareholder in BuchPartner. The full-service provider for books and media, with its own logistics centre in Darmstadt, manages and supports professional book departments in the retail trade and offers customised space concepts and book ranges for this purpose.
ZEITFRACHT Logistik Holding GmbH successfully places a bond in the over-the-counter market of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on 5 May. The debut issue, whose final interest rate has been set at 5.00 per cent p.a., has a volume of 25 million euros and a term of 5 years.
The issuer is part of the ZEITFRACHT group of companies and, together with its subsidiaries, forms the logistics sub-group. It is a leading provider in Germany in the field of system and media logistics as well as logistics for electronic products.
The German Children’s Book Prize is launched by Jasmin Schröter, owner of the ZEITFRACHT Group. The prize, which is endowed with 100,000 euros, will be awarded for the first time on 2 October and is intended to anchor the subject of children’s books even more firmly in public perception. The award is given to children’s books aimed at the age group between four and eight years. The selection process includes both an adult jury and a children’s jury, which is made up of two children from each German federal state. The German Children’s Book Prize will be sponsored by Jasmin Schröter every year from now on.
Sauter Feinmechanik GmbH will be taken over by the ZEITFRACHT Group on 1 July 2021. As one of the world’s leading manufacturers of mechanical engineering components, the traditional company from Metzingen will provide various ZEITFRACHT companies with expertise and experience.
ADLER Modemärkte AG becomes part of the ZEITFRACHT Group. With effect from 01.09.2021, ZEITFRACHT Logistik Holding GmbH will take over all shares of the fashion company with over 130 shops in Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland.
Through the takeover, ZEITFRACHT grows by more than 2,600 employees.
From 1993 to 2000, the civil part of the airport was owned by three municipal shareholders: the city of Laage, the district of Rostock and the Hanseatic city of Rostock.
In November 2021, following an expression of interest process, the Zeitfracht Group reached an agreement with the shareholders of Rostock-Laage Airport and acquired the civil part of the airport with effect from 01.01.2022. The fleet of the company-owned German Airways has since been maintained at the Rostock-Laage-Güstrow site.
With effect from July 1, 2022, ZEITFRACHT GmbH is taking over the Hoffmann print shop, thereby securing almost 140 jobs. Through the acquisition, ZEITFRACHT is expanding its portfolio with digital printing services – in particular LED UV and web offset printing – in which the full-service provider based in Nuremberg specializes.
Since August 16, 2022, the ZEITFRACHT Group has entered into a joint and sweet future with the chocolate and delicatessen manufacturer Leysieffer. By taking over the Osnabrück-based family business, ZEITFRACHT preserves the traditional brand and secures the jobs of its employees.
ZEITFRACHT HEROES
Get a unique insight into our ZEITFRACHT world – with personal information for partners and customers. Our heroic employees let us share their efforts: Logistics, fulfilment, distribution, merchandising, mobility, home delivery and much more. More than 6.300 employees at 40 locations are committed every day to inspiring you with our individual services worldwide. Get to know our ZEITFRACHT heroes who master every challenge. Fast, flexible and personal. We continuously report on hero stories and exciting background information. You can also follow us on LinkedIn.
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Zeitfracht GmbH & Co.KGaA
Albert-Einstein-Ring 22
14532 Kleinmachnow
