History
90er & 00er
2010er
2020er
today
Foundation, first years and takeover by Team Logistik GmbH
In 1993, Lothar König founded König Transportgesellschaft mbH (Spedition König, König Transporte or simply König for short) together with Karin and Otto Roth. From its headquarters in Könnern (Saxony-Anhalt), König delivered animal feed and bulk goods (e.g. grain, rapeseed) for Roth Agrarhandel in the 1990s and early 2000s. Roth Agrar, whose customers König supplied exclusively for decades, was one of the largest agricultural traders in central Germany and the first trader to market the "deuka" brand in the new federal states after reunification.
In connection with Team Agrar's (formerly HaGe Kiel) shareholding in Roth Agrarhandel in 2011, 50 per cent of the shares in König Transportgesellschaft were sold by Roth Agrar to Team Logistik GmbH (formerly HaGe Logistik GmbH) at the same time. Team Logistik took over the remaining shares in the haulage company the following year in 2012. In the years that followed, König increasingly specialised in the transport of animal feed for agricultural businesses and invested primarily in special silo vehicles.
Further growth and entry of Deutsche Tiernahrung Cremer
In times of steadily increasing livestock numbers, the demand for feed increased and with it the need for feed transport. The specialisation adopted by König paid off more and more as a result. In 2017, König took over the fleet, drivers and transport portfolio of Landhandel Lücke from Schwichteler in Lower Saxony (Cloppenburg district) in order to meet the increasing demand in the agricultural sector. This increased König's lorry fleet to a total of 32 vehicles. König established its first branch office in Höltinghausen (Lower Saxony) in order to manage the operational business appropriately.
A new era began at König with the entry of Deutsche Tiernahrung Cremer (DTC). In 2017 , Germany's largest private compound feed company acquired50 per cent of the shares in König. At this point, the specialist freight forwarder was already moving hundreds of thousands of tonnes of feed, grain and raw material components in western and eastern Germany. The range of transport logistics services had developed steadily and König was already serving all the major brands in the agricultural sector.
DTC takes over König, expansion in the south and further acquisitions
After intensive negotiations, the deal was finally completed in summer 2022: Deutsche Tiernahrung Cremer (DTC) took over Spedition König with retroactive effect from 1 January. Parallel to the acquisition, König Managing Director Daniel Stjern was appointed Chief Supply Chain Officer (CSCO) at DTC and, in his new role, will continue to develop the logistics division at Germany's leading private compound feed manufacturer.
Over time, new customer orders increasingly took König lorries to the south of the country. In order to ensure deliveries to companies in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, the specialised haulage company expanded into southern Germany and installed its own fleet of vehicles at DTC's plant locations in the south.
König's expansion also continued in the 2020s: the takeover of the fleet, drivers and transport portfolio of Landhandel Höhne from Herzberg in Brandenburg , the former fleet of LEIKRA (Leipziger Kraftfuttermittel GmbH) and Landhandel Mienits in East Frisia led to a significant expansion of the fleet.
By taking over equipment and personnel from Agrarhandel Wilhelm Wöhrle from Schwarzach (Rheinmünster) in Baden-Württemberg, König then also strengthened its transport capacities in the south-west, which is particularly challenging in terms of transport, in spring 2024.
König Transporte today...
With an impressive fleet of more than 50 trucks, a workforce of over 80 colleagues and an annual tonnage of more than 700,000 tonnes of feed, grain and raw material components (2023), the DTC special logistics subsidiary can now call itself one of the most important forwarding companies operating nationwide in the field of silo and feed logistics.