"A successful business relationship is like a happy marriage."

Sappi is worldwide the leading producer of chemical cellulose and, with a yearly production of 6.1 million tons, of coated fine paper. All around the world, business reports, newspapers, books, glossy magazines and catalogues are printed on paper produced by the South African company. Sappi was founded 74 years ago in Johannesburg. At present, more than 15,400 employees work for Sappi in production and sales sites on 4 continents.  The company has clients in more than 100 countries.

"Every year, we export from South Africa more than 900,000 tons of paper and pulp to destinations all over the world. Our central challenge: as global market leader we always want to keep the promise of supplying our clients "just-in-time".  Here, Röhlig-Grindrod plays a decisive role: the company handles for us all export transactions as well as taking care of customs clearing and transportation in sea and air freight.

Together we improve continuously our logistic processes. Röhlig-Grindrod has helped us, for example, to optimize the import of our raw materials and, thereby, to save a lot of money. Naturally, this is only possible thanks to an exceptionally close collaboration. On a daily basis, we discuss the operational tasks with our partner - in Johannesburg, our employees even work in the same office building.

For more than 30 years Sappi and Röhlig-Grindrod have been business partners. I would call this relationship a happy marriage: the two partners know exactly what the other expects from them. We communicate straightforwardly and we can count on the other: for example, if there is a delay or a problem occurs, Röhlig-Grindrod takes action right away and finds a solution."