Norbert Heep runs a fruit wholesale business at the Cologne wholesale market with an annual turnover of around 15 million euros. However, it has now been decided that the wholesale centre will have to make way for good at the end of 2025. Therefore, Heep is also looking for a new location for his company. "We want to stay as close to Cologne as possible," he says. The problem: there are virtually no large refrigerated warehouses within the city that have a night licence. Without this permit, no lorries can deliver and collect goods at night.
Norbert Heep in better times: Here during FreshPlaza's wholesale market visit in 2019.
"I think it's almost impossible that we will continue to pay our trade tax in Cologne," says Heep. He is looking for a two-pronged approach: firstly, just for his business. And then he is not giving up on the dream of a new wholesale centre in Cologne: He is also enquiring about larger areas where Früchte Heep might continue to operate a small centre with other retailers in the future.
For more information:
www.koelner-grossmarkt.de
www.frucht.de