Dematra, short for De Jaeger Marcel Transport, saw the light of day in Deinze in 1976. Marcel De Jaeger, expropriated as a farmer in Dudzele to make way for the expansion of the Zeebrugge port, then moved to Deinze with his brood. To take his eight children to school or to take them on family visits, he purchased a van that was used in between to provide transportation services. In 1978, son Stefaan joined the business and a second-hand tractor-trailer combination was purchased to drive as a subcontractor. When a second combination was ordered, Marcel died suddenly. Son Geert joined the company in 1980 and, again as a subcontractor, took on the distribution of packages in East and West Flanders. Until, at a certain moment, Dematra itself managed to attract more customers than its customer and developed a 24-hour distribution activity in-house. "Today, Dematra delivers about 1,500 shipments per day in the Benelux, ranging from small parcels to full trailers," outlines CEO Geert De Jaeger, who controls the company on an equal basis with brother Stefaan. Geert's son, Cédric, as a member of the third generation, is now also active within the company. A good twenty years ago, Dematra stopped its international transport activities to the Netherlands, France and Spain.
Initially, Dematra housed its distribution activities in the garage of its parents' house along the Oudenaardsesteenweg in Deinze. Forced by necessity, it quickly moved to the nearby industrial zone "De Prijkels", where a house and small warehouse were built on a 5,000 m² site. This warehouse was soon expanded and equipped with ten loading and unloading docks.
To accommodate its growth, in 1996 Dematra bought industry partner Transport Dhondt in Tielt, at that time part of the Walloon group Gustin Orban Demonty (Verviers) and active in distribution since the 1950s. Dematra sold the buildings in the E3-laan in Deinze in order to move its headquarters to Tielt, where it put into use a 6,000 m² warehouse with some 30 loading bays.
In Tielt, Dematra entered the warehousing business for the first time in 2000. The existing warehouse was expanded with additional storage capacity, part of which, in accordance with the regulations, was set up for ADR transport (2,500 pallets). The standard warehouse is given a capacity of 5,000 pallets. As time passed, the ADR story came to an end and Dematra turned its attention more than ever to warehousing.
Meanwhile, through Associated Oil Packers (AOP, Izegem), Dematra was active in the storage of food products. This opened the doors for the logistics service provider to the strongly growing Poco Loco (Roeselare), for which a "dedicated" warehouse was built in Roeselare in 2007. The building, with a capacity of 23,000 pallet spaces, quickly proved too small so additional storage capacity was rented in and around Roeselare. Since Poco Loco was sold to a Finnish family company, Dematra has been providing warehousing activities in Roeselare for three customers. Work is still in progress for the tortilla maker, but those warehousing activities have since been moved to Nazareth.
"For us, the collaboration with Poco Loco was synonymous with a thorough professionalization of the warehousing activities (WMS, barcoding, etc.). As a result, Dematra can now position itself as a specialist in the storage of dry food with temperature-controlled warehouses that are all BRC-certified," says Geert De Jaeger.
Return to "de Prijkels"
In the meantime, Dematra's home base in Tielt no longer seemed sufficient to cope with the growth. Eight years ago, the logistics service provider returned to ... "De Prijkels", where the company purchased premises from a sector associate on Karreweg in Nazareth. The family SME now has a 33,000 m² site there, which has been built on for 16,000 m². The first part of 8,000 m² was converted into a storage warehouse for distribution purposes (5,500 m² with 58 unloading bays). The separated second section, good for 13,000 pallet spaces and six unloading quays, was set up for warehousing activities.
Four years ago, Dematra purchased an additional 15,000 m² of land across from its headquarters. It erected there a 12,000 m² warehouse with 16 loading docks and 27,000 pallet spaces that is used exclusively for warehousing for the benefit of the food sector. A good year later, Dematra took over the storage of the products of an American vinyl flooring manufacturer in a rented warehouse in Waregem. Here, too, the logistics service provider was facing growth problems. Moreover, the rental contract will soon expire. "The customer is willing to work with us for a period of ten years. The intention is that we will develop a European distribution center for the client," reveals our interlocutor.
Need for additional space
This assignment, combined with the existing warehouses that are nearing their capacity limits, made Dematra look for an additional site. The company was the only logistics service provider able to purchase an additional site in the "De Prijkels" expansion zone. "The plan is to construct two buildings on the 35,390 m² site. In the first standard building with offices, measuring 10,000 m², we will accommodate our vinyl flooring manufacturer from Waregem, among others. The whole building, which will have an annex of 3,000 m², will be reserved for non-food customers. We are also planning the construction of a 46-meter high silo building with 70,000 pallet spaces for the food industry. We hope to take the standard building into use next fall, the silo building we want to realize as soon as possible," added De Jaeger.
It is clear that Dematra, without denying its distribution activities, will more than ever play the card of value-added logistics in the future. The ambition is to double warehousing sales in the coming years. That the focus will be on both food and non-food goes without saying. Whether activities within the food sector will continue to be limited to temperature-controlled storage, the future will tell.
