Ferest Rail, a railway logistics company based in the Italian city of Udine, has established itself as one of Europe's biggest players in the transport of grains, from those destined for animal feed to those for consumers, making it a leader in the sector on the Old Continent.
Over the past two years, the company has realized Italy's first 2,500-ton gross weight train, doubled the number of employees tripled the amount of goods transported and recorded an exponential growth in turnover (20 million euros in 2019, 30 million euros at the end of 2022, and with a trend that suggests exceeding 40 million euros in 2023). At the same time, it has almost doubled the number of wagons in its fleet, which now counts over 1,100 cars.
All this was underlined last week by Sandra Vukic, CEO of Ferest Rail and co-owner of the company, who opened a ceremony held in Udine at Officina FVG Rail SpA. The event sealed the latest contract signed with partner Wascosa AG for the supply of 300 wagons for the transport of grain. "A step we made thanks to which we became the biggest private logistics operator on a national level and also one of the major ones in Europe," commented Vukic.
According to CFO at Ferest Rail Stefano Ghilardi, most of the freight transported comes from Eastern European countries, namely Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, and Ukraine, and is mainly destined to the North of Italy. "The war in Ukraine had initially completely shut off all sea transports through the Black Sea, which was later partially reactivated, causing enormous problems for grain exports. This forced Ukraine to look for alternative logistics solutions found in railway transportation. In addition, the different track gauges mean that goods have to be transhipped at the borders, requiring innovative logistics solutions to overcome these limitations," added Ghilardi.
