CSS sheds 'co-operative' shackles and broadens its service spectrum

IT'S OFFICIAL.
Cape Town-based Co-Operative Shipping Service has been renamed CSS, and the 77-year-old forwarder and logistical service provider will no longer trade as a cooperative but as a private company with 30 shareholders, said managing director Mike Walwyn.
We have identified the need to broaden our operational base, with the result that we now handle business from a wide variety of commercial undertakings, including some of South Africa's major industrial corporations, Walwyn told FTW. We have also expanded our operations, so that we now offer the full spectrum of logistical services, ranging from overseas forwarding, airfreight, customs broking and warehousing, to local road transportation.
CSS was established in 1921 as the Fruit Growers Co-operative Exchange of South Africa Limited by the Citrus and Deciduous export industries. In 1940 the Co-operative was registered as a Special Farmers Federal Co-operative with the name Co-operative Shipping Service Limited, which was the name under which it operated until the recent broadening of its base. Their web site is at www.coopshipping.co.za
By Simon Farrell