Friuli’s Ferest Rail amongst the great European players in the railway logistics game. Over the last two years, the tons transported have tripled, and the revenue has grown exponentially.

Ferest Rail expands its fleet, the official ceremony took place at “Officina FVG Rail SpA”, Udine. The fleet has over 1.100 wagons.

UDINE, 19th April 2023 – Over the last two years, Friuli’s Ferest Rail, a railway logistic company based in Udine, has established itself as one of Europe’s top players in the cereals transportation, from those destined to feed the livestock to the consumers ones, putting them amongst the main leaders of the sector in the old continent.

The goal reached is attested by the company’s results, as over the course of the past two years it managed the first 2.500 gross tons train in Italy, it doubled the number of its employees (with 6 hirings taking place only in 2022), it tripled the tons transported and it recorded an exponential growth in revenue (20 mln in 2019, 30 mln at the end of 2022, and a foreseen reaching of the 40 mln by the end of 2023).

And, most importantly, the company has almost doubled the number of wagons in their fleet, as it counts over 1.100 wagons. This is what has been highlighted today by Sandra Vukic, CEO of Ferest Rail and co-owner of the company, by officiating a ceremony held at Udine’s railway station, in “Officina FVG Rail SpA”, in the presence of the local authorities. An event that has sealed the last contract undertaken with the partner Wascosa AG, for the supply of 300 wagons designed for the cereal transportation. “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”, stated Vukic, thanking the numerous guests in attendance “for sharing with us these major goals reached over the last 2 years”.

“We felt strongly about implementing our fleet with new wagons and the choice fell upon Wascosa, not only for their beautiful orange colour, which is also our social colour – continued the CEO -, but mainly for the technical characteristics that make them more performing over the wagons of others producers. And our goal is to completely renew our fleet over time”.

 Vukic has also highlighted “in such an unstable Covid period it took a certain dose of courage to stipulate a contract of this magnitude, when everybody else was waiting for an improvement of the then state of things, whereas I was convinced in making this decision and I can confirm it today, it was the right moment. Then the war in Ukraine postponed the supply of the wagons by roughly 7 months, but at the end we reached our goal and we managed to take them home”.

Shortly after followed the intervention of Peter Balzer, chairman of the board of directors of Wascosa who thanked Ferest Rail for ordering 300 hopper wagons, and Stefano Ghilardi, CFO at Ferest Rail and co-owner.

Finally, the ‘technical’ contribution of Dominic Felice and Julia Kiss, COO and sales agent of Wascosa AG. The interventions have been mediated by journalist Maurizio Cescon.

CFO Ghilardi helped paint a picture of the current operational status of Ferest Rail in his speech. “The majority of the goods transported – he explained – comes from eastern European countries, such as Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Ukraine and it is destined to the North of Italy. The war in Ukraine – he added – had initially completely shut off all sea transports through the Black Sea, only to be partially reopened, causing enormous problems to the export of cereals, with the country being a world leader in the field.

This required Ukraine to urgently seek out alternative logistic solutions – he continued – which found its answer in the railway transportation. The different rail gauge, which makes the transhipment of the goods at the border necessary and the great load volumes conflict with the limited European resources in terms of infrastructures, means (as in locomotives and wagons) and personnel – he highlighted – and that will require time to locate innovative logistic solutions that can make up for such shortages and limitations”.

Beyond agro-food products, Ferest Rail specializes in LPG transportation.

“Our company – the CFO stated – has recently started a traffic flow of automotive from Romania to Italy, but it also manages the flow of different primary goods towards Italy and it takes over steel transportation. And in the future – said Ghilardi at last – we mean to operate in France, Netherlands and Germany, and we have already undertaken negotiations for various partnerships”.