Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Sprungli will receive cocoa beans coming from Amsterdam by rail from now on. The initiative is made possible by VTG, which converted some of its regular hopper wagons to enable them for this type of transport service.

Hopper wagons are “are ideal for carrying moisture-sensitive farm produce such as cocoa beans”, VTG pointed out. The German company fitted the containers with two 25-ton compartments and a readily accessible opening to allow samples to be taken for quality control. VTG and Lindt’s new solution entails the shift from single wagonload services to a blocktrain. VTG was contacted multiple times for more information but no answer has been provided as of yet.

The train will connect the port of Amsterdam to Lindt’s facility in Olten, in northern Switzerland. Amsterdam, together with Hamburg and Antwerp, is among the leader European ports when it comes to the import of cocoa beans. As the Port of Amsterdam highlighted, “together with Zaanstad, we form the largest cocoa cluster in the world”.

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