CMA CGM, one of the world’s largest ocean carriers, taking a long-term lease in a build-to-suit, multi-temperature warehouse facility at DP World London Gateway Logistics Park.

CMA CGM will occupy, through its international freight forwarding and logistics solutions subsidiary, a two and a half acre cold store facility within a six-acre logistics plot development on the River Thames and located close to main road access into the London area.

This facility, fitted with IT traceability and management systems, represents a major milestone for the CMA CGM Group’s strategy to develop a global range of products in maritime transportation but also in inland solutions and logistics.

With the cold store, CMA CGM will feature chilled and frozen chambers to handle a large variety of temperature-controlled products as well as offer customers a wide range of added-value services such as, product quality controls, packing, sorting, labeling, palletization, and bagging. It will also offer customs clearance, shunting (transfer from the quay to the warehouse) and delivery transportation (last-mile delivery).

The new cold store will be a real logistical platform gathering several types of work and expertise in a single place for a more efficient and reliable customer experience.

This is also a significant step up in our partnership with DP World, showing that ports, shipping lines, logistics companies and industrial zones can work collaboratively to deliver value for cargo owners shipping into and out of the UK.

“We’ll be able to offer our customers a unique range of value added services and make sure their goods receive the best care all along their journey with CMA CGM and until they reach  their final destination,” said Alexis Michel, CMA CGM Group Senior Vice President Inland Activities.

Work will start later this year, and the facility will become operational in early summer of 2019.

The CMA CGM Group, the world’s second largest carrier of reefer containers, is currently bringing cargo through DP World London Gateway Port on seven services. This includes large numbers of refrigerated containers arriving from the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, India and South America.

In the last two months, CMA CGM has consolidated much of its UK-bound temperature-controlled cargo, originating in the Southern Hemisphere, to come through DP World London Gateway Port.

This development and growth of CMA CGM’s reefer volumes ties in with DP World London Gateway’s ability to deliver time and cost savings, as well as reduce waste and carbon use through a one-stop-shop logistics solution that will increase product speed-to-market and reduce haulier mileage.

The group is already bringing a significant amount of cargo through the port and this is an exciting next step in the product and service CMA CGM can offer its customers. We’re proud to have worked with such a key customer on a project which will without doubt increase supply chain efficiencies and add value.

The port, which is among the fastest growing in the world, is handling large numbers of refrigerated containers arriving from all over the world. It uses more than 1600 ‘reefer’ points, a weather-resilient, automated container stacking system, custom-built inspection facilities and a service for shunting containers between the port and its neighboring logistics park.