Raise your glass: To the next ten years!
Fine spirits are running high all across Europe. That’s why, with two years to go, Hamburg-based spirits importer Borco extended its collaboration with DACHSER Food Logistics until 2027.
Put gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup, and a couple of ice cubes in a shaker and shake vigorously, until the mixture is crowned with foam. Then drain into a tall glass with ice, top off with soda, add a slice of lemon, and the gin fizz is complete. Classics like this are the top choice for those enjoying the sunset from a rooftop terrace or a cocktail bar.
Borco in Hamburg
“There’s no end in sight for the gin trend,” says Norman Brüggemann, head of purchasing, logistics, and production at Borco in Hamburg. The spirits importer recently added Nikka Coffey Gin: its maker, a Japanese whiskey distillery, has hopped on the speeding gin train with a characteristic blend of juniper berries, cilantro, and eight other botanicals. Borco’s range also includes Sansibar Gin from the German island of Sylt, Whitley Neill Gin and Finsbury London Dry Gin from the UK, and Rutte Gin from the Netherlands. All together, the company produces and sells some 600 items throughout Germany.
Borco began working with DACHSER Food Logistics back in 2009—at first in sales of promotional materials, then expanding to include warehousing, spirits transport, and added-value services.
“In the years that we’ve been working together, our product range has grown by 20 percent,” Brüggemann says. “During that growth process, we found DACHSER’s quality, network, and strong contacts to be greatly valuable. I’m thinking for example of the professional handling of deliveries to retailers.”
A successful collaboration
Borco’s logistics contract with DACHSER is set to run until 2019, yet two years before it is due to expire, the company has already decided to renew it until 2027. “We know what we have with DACHSER and we want long-term security in our planning,” Brüggeman says by way of explanation. Torben Wieben, Key Account Manager at DACHSER Food Logistics, adds: “It’s difficult to find a comparable warehouse in the Hamburg area with a comparable level of service.” On Borco’s behalf, DACHSER operates a warehouse in Hamburg with up to 18,000 pallet slots. Some 30,000 shipments leave the warehouse each year, delivering spirits to bars, restaurants, and retail.
Value-added services are playing an increasingly important role. For example, to alert buyers to new brands or seasonal beverages, Borco will box bottles along with the proper glasses. “The picking and packaging of these promotional goods is highly varied and calls for the utmost in flexibility and reliability in day-to-day operations,” Brüggemann explains. In addition to gastronomy and retail, special events are an important area for Borco. For example, the company’s own bartenders will hold “brand training” events in hotels and bars. At a major online-marketing trade fair at Hamburg Messe, Borco put a fully stocked bar on the main stage. And the Hamburg-based family company is present with one or more brands at many open-air music festivals.
Without carefully coordinated and precisely executed logistics, such events would be impossible. Brüggemann describes what is involved: “Every day, pallets of promotional materials, bottles, glasses, and barware have to be delivered to locations across Germany and then picked up again.” At the end of the spirits chain, then, is pure enjoyment—such as relaxing at sundown with a cool gin fizz.
