The Schwarz Group, the holding company that owns the Lidl and Kaufland distribution chains, has confirmed the creation of its own maritime freight transport company to move its products, with the aim of making the management of larger cargo volumes more flexible and independent of third parties.
The group has registered the Tailwind Shipping Lines trademark with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and intends to put its own ships into service by mid-2023, according to several German media outlets.
According to the EU register, the new company's objectives include freight and maritime transport, as well as air transport and import/export processing services. " The goal is to manage the growing volume of different production facilities more flexibly in the long term," Wolf Tiedemann, Lidl's head of logistics operations, told VerkehrsRundschau.
Overcoming supply chain tensions
In this way, the Schwarz Group wants to support factories that produce a lot of goods but have to wait several weeks for their transport. The intention of Lidl's parent company is to develop maritime services that include the acquisition of containers and freight, as well as the acquisition of container ships to try to keep a " very unstable supply chain properly stocked and ensure the supply of goods to all our branches ".
