Wared Logistics has started the first of a series of temperature controlled warehouses planned to be in operation by mid 2012. The first warehouse, a six thousand square meters freezer/chiller facility in Riyadh, will be fully operational by 1st January 2012. The Riyadh operation will be followed by Jeddah and Dammam, and other locations in central and southern Saudi Arabia. Wared’s warehousing operations come under the subsidiary Wared Warehousing & Distribution company, which expects to have up to 15,000 m2 of refrigerated warehousing under management by Q2/Q3 2012. Asked whether Wared Logistics will focus exclusively on refrigerated warehousing, CEO Marwan Alfadl responded “Temperature controlled warehousing for finished products represents the higher end of the market. Entry barriers are relatively high in terms of investment and know-how. Customer demands are high, and tolerances are low. Warehouse management systems are required, as well as efficient product handling. By focusing on this segment Wared Logistics is firmly establishing itself as a professional third party logistics (3PL) service provider.”

“As for dry warehousing” Alfadl continued, “frozen goods clients tend to have dry storage requirements as well, so that will be part of our operations. On a broader scale, the costs of dry tends to be more a reflection of real estate supply than 3PL demand. There is a proliferation of dry warehouse supply, ranging from low to intermediate quality, which sometimes distorts what the cost of storage should be. However, we will be looking more closely into dry and ambient as we progress.”

Wared warehousing activities are complemented by mature transport companies embodied in Wared Transport, a full truckload (FTL) and heavy transport operation, and Wared Express, a less-than-truckload (LTL) and dedicated truck operation.

Over the past 18 months Wared has established dedicated truck facilities catering to the food and pharmaceuticals industries, and is currently expanding its fleet of dedicated reefer trucks to handle distribution of frozen stored goods.