Flemish warehouses bursting at the seams

Warehouses in the Flemish ports and along the motorways are jam-packed. A shortage of containers, companies holding on to ever-higher stocks out of uncertainty, and the rise of e-commerce are the reasons why things are getting tighter in Flemish logistics, reports De Standaard.

Stocking goods is not an easy task these days: there is hardly any warehouse space left in Flanders. The vast warehouses in the ports or along the motorways are full almost everywhere, with occupancy rates as high as 98 percent. Port of Antwerp, Europe’s second-largest container port, confirms warehouses are full: “Since the corona crisis there have been too few containers available worldwide, so goods that are normally shipped in containers such as steel, sugar and coffee are again being transported in bulk”, spokesperson Sabine Rys told De Standaard. “These goods cannot be stored in a container on a terminal - which are also lacking in space - but have to be kept dry in warehouses.”

CEO Joost Uwents of WDP, one of the largest logistics property firms in Europe, claims “the just-in-time model, where companies keep almost no stocks, is a thing of the past. (…) We are evolving towards a just-in-case model. Whoever can keep sufficient stock today, is king in the manufacturing industry.”

"Whoever can keep sufficient stock today, is king in the manufacturing industry.”

According to Lode Verkinderen, director at Transport and Logistic Flanders (TLV), companies are afraid production will come to a standstill because of major problems in the supply chain, he told De Standaard, citing the car industry as a recent example. “This is why every company stocks up as much as possible. They hardly look at the price anymore. It is better to have too much in stock, even if it costs a lot of money, than to have to cease production because of a shortage of raw materials.”

Other than the crises caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, there is more going on, according to Uwents and Verkinderen. If GDP grows by 1 percent, demand for transport and storage space usually increases by 1,5 percent – largely because of e-commerce and its extensive logistic needs. It is much more difficult nowadays to put the logistics puzzle together, Uwens says, because consumer goods come to the consumer via many more channels: via the shop, delivered to at home or to the office. This new reality brings with it a greater need for distribution centres and warehouses.

Another obstacle for the logistics sector are stricter Flemish policies in terms of spatial planning. Local councils are no longer so eager to issue building permits for large storage facilities in the densely populated Flemish region. Over the past ten years the Netherlands, on the contrary, “has rolled out the red carpet for large logistics companies”, according to WDP. Even in the Netherlands, however, criticism of these ‘big boxes’ is growing, making it more difficult to build new warehouses there too, while the demand for storage space is structurally increasing. “The Benelux is actually full”, Uwents summarizes.

(BRV)

Photo shows a warehouse at Broeckman Logistics company in the Port of Antwerp. © BELGA PHOTO DIRK WAEM