History

The Company was founded in 1945 by Mr. Henk Datema, the former M.D. of the official representative for Holland-America Line in Amsterdam.

It started operating from "House Gelderland", an ancient building dating back from the 17th century located at Prinsengracht in the old canal heart of Amsterdam City.

Within a short period of time, Datema became an important player in the Dutch forwarding industry, offering a full package of maritime services, such as deep-sea export and import forwarding, including consolidation, customs brokerage and transport insurance.

The fast and healthy growth of the Company pretty soon resulted in the opening of a branch office in worlds largest harbour, Rotterdam. After having established world-wide representations, the Management at an early hour foresaw the importance of Airfreight, which lead in 1961 to the foundation of Datema-Air B.V., a division fully specialised in the handling of airfreight with own facilities at Amsterdam and Rotterdam airports.

The development of maritime transportation by container forced Datema in the early seventies to relocate its Head Quarters from Amsterdam to its facilities in Rotterdam.

Over the years the need for swift overseas delivery grew steadily and the international trade started to look for facilities closer to the markets, to be used as hub for the distribution of products.

Also that trend was recognised by Datema at early stage and the office in Rotterdam introduced a special department offering already from 1956 full Warehousing & Distribution Systems to international manufacturers and suppliers.

In May 1987, the Schiphol-branch of Datema-Air, moved to newly built premises, just off Schiphol-aiport. Here, similar warehousing and distribution activities are offered.

Since 1988 the Datema-group is exclusive partner of Hellmann Worldwide Logistics in The Netherlands.

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