01.07.2020 - 50 Years of Paper and Forestry Product Logistics

It was only last year, on 1 July 2019, that we at European Cargo Logistics GmbH celebrated our 20^th anniversary. Our timeline extends much further than that, however, as we can now look back on a 50-year history. On 1 July 1970, partners in the Finnish paper industry founded the company “IMPAKA Importabwicklung von Papier und Karton GmbH” for the importation of paper and cardboard. Since then, a small team has been involved in transporting paper and cardboard products from Finland to the whole of Europa via the Port of Lübeck and distributing these products to the end customers.

Three years later, the company “WARICO Importabwicklung von Papier- und Karton GmbH” emerged from IMPAKA GmbH. The new name was also intended to accelerate the company’s growth. In 1996, the company was taken over by a new Finnish partner and our name was changed again: From then on, we were called “UPM Kymmene Distribution GmbH”. Just three years later, in 1999, we were given our present company name – that was the day “European Cargo Logistics GmbH” was born, or in short: “ECL GmbH”.

Since 2001, we have been a fully owned subsidiary of the company Lübecker Hafen-Gesellschaft mbH. In 2004, the ECL family was joined by our Rostock branch, followed in 2015 by our subsidiary in St. Petersburg, “OOO ECL Rus”.

According to our company history, we are an enterprise with name changing four times, but our order book has continued throughout to the present day. To date, we have received more than 40 million tons of paper and forestry products at the quayside in Lübeck and Rostock and further transported these products to the respective consignees by road or rail.

Today, 50 years after being founded, we are the leading Baltic Sea logistics provider for paper and forestry products as well as multimodal transport. We offer forwarding, haulage and logistical services for the entire Baltic region in our three core areas of paper and forestry product logistics, multimodal transport consignments and combined transport.