SACD to open high-security warehouse

SACD Freight is set to open a new high-security warehouse - catering specifically for minerals – at its City Deep premises later this month. Despite an exceptionally tough year – particularly on the import side – the company is upbeat about the future. “What’s happening now is likely to be short-term,” regional director Dennis Trotter told FTW. “It will turn around so we are investing now in a new warehouse, which is an extension of our existing facility that will give us around 38 000 sqm under roof “We’re hoping that it will be fully operational at the end of October. “Security-wise it will be very high tech, with scanning and bar-coding facilities in place.” An important element of SACD’s business activity involves consolidating commodities from the DRC and Zambia in City Deep, containerising them and transporting the products to ship’s stack. “We don’t trade in Africa but work with customers who use our facility for consolidation, offering them a logistics solution within South Africa. “Volumes aren’t what they were but we’re confident they will recover fairly soon,” he told FTW. “Earlier this year we had a lot of demand for capacity and on the strength of that we decided to extend our warehouse. “In the past six months we have felt the ill effects of the depressed commodity price but that didn’t stop us from building the facility – which will be attractive to people moving high-value cargo because of the security.” These developments are all part and parcel of the SACD philosophy of changing its model to move with the times. “We’ve been around since 1977 and have had to change our model many times since then,” said Trotter. Survival, in his view, is all about keeping up to date and adapting. “If you look at our site now compared to what it was - our focus was always on the container, now it’s on the cargo. “Things will boom again and we’ll see a lot of different solutions that will have been found in these tough times – people are working smarter because they’re forced to. “It’s a case of seeing out the tough times, keeping costs under control and being ready to capitalise when things improve.” CAPTION Dennis Trotter … ‘ready to capitalise when things improve.’