Today:
Commodity Forwarders to join the Kuehne + Nagel Group.
Tomorrow and into the foreseeable future:
The way that our fourteen US locations operate, the way we work tirelessly for our customers and the way we communicate with our business partners remains the same.
What it means:
Alfred Kuehlewind, founder of Commodity Forwarders, Inc, with his first partner Carl Waldhouser who has since passed away. The values Alfred instilled in the company continue as we start a new chapter today with K + N.
CFI will use our culture, our management team and our people to operate the KN Fresh Solutions concept for the United States. Customers and vendors will continue to benefit from the strength of our hands-on professional customer service culture, geographic network within the United States and current network relationships. The global focus of Kuehne + Nagel’s KN Fresh solutions will help both expand markets or services that are currently not easily available in a perishable network solution.
In practical terms, the “Fresh solutions” product will remain separate from K+N’s regular day-to-day dry cargo operations within North America. Perishables are so unique; the knowledge set and urgency needed in running it on a day-to-day basis continues unchanged. It is people, facilities and the understanding that every second counts.
The company name remains unchanged – we are still Commodity Forwarders, Inc. The management and leadership of CFI remains in place as well. The customer service teams remain in place with identical email addresses and telephone numbers.
The final transaction is expected to close in September because it must be approved by the United States Justice Department who has a period of time to review the agreement.
Rest assured, CFI is here the same way we always have been since Alfred began the business in 1974 when he started shipping California strawberries to Europe from Los Angeles.
If you have any questions about what this means, whether as employee, business partner or customer, do not hesitate to reach out and contact me by email or by telephone at (310) 348-8855.
