Constellation’s 2025: The Acquisitions, Expansions and Milestones That Shaped Our Year – Carlos Rodriguez, CEO

2025 has been Constellation’s most successful year to date – a year defined by purposeful delivery and customer-led growth.

At the start of the year, we set out three clear priorities designed to strengthen the value we provide to customers: 

1. Strengthen the way our teams and sites work together across the network to build the integrated culture that underpins consistent high-quality service
2. Expand in the markets where we could make the greatest impact for existing customers 
3. Enter new markets where it added strategic relevance

The progress made across our network reflects disciplined execution, strong local leadership and the trust of our customers. After a busy year, I want to take the time to highlight the acquisitions, expansions and milestones that shaped our year and strengthened the foundations of our service.

We expanded our network in existing markets – and entered new ones

Our growth this year has been deliberate and customer-led – expanding capacity where demand is strongest and adding new capabilities that strengthen Europe’s most important supply chains. Each development has been shaped by the same objective: to offer customers more reliable, flexible support across borders.

In November, we delivered the 36,000-pallet expansion of our Grimsby cold storage facility, taking the site beyond 50,000 spaces and significantly improving energy efficiency, loading capability and value-added services. This investment reinforces one of the UK’s most important hubs and provides customers with the scalable capacity they need during a period of increasing operational pressure.

As well as expanding our existing sites, we strengthened our Dutch network through the acquisition of Lau van Haren Cold Stores, adding approximately 15,000 pallet positions and specialist blast-freezing, repacking and distribution services. These new capabilities increase the flexibility and responsiveness of our service, particularly for customers with complex or fast-moving cross-border requirements.

From the Netherlands, our expansion continued north. In Denmark, we grew our presence with the acquisition of the Køge cold store, adding 20,000 pallet positions on the east coast of Zealand. The site’s strong local expertise further reinforces our Nordic operations and supports customers in a key logistics region serving both domestic and export markets.

This momentum culminated in a major milestone for Constellation: our entry into the German market through the acquisition of Spedition Wohlert and Wohlert Kühl Logistik. Adding 40,000 pallet positions and a national fleet of 150 vehicles, this partnership provides a high-quality foundation in one of Europe’s most important food logistics markets and reflects our measured, service-driven approach to growth.

Together, these developments demonstrate a clear principle. Growth is only meaningful when it improves service reliability, flexibility and reach for our customers – whether by adding capacity where it is most needed, introducing specialist capabilities or extending our presence into markets essential to their supply chains.

We strengthened our network through integration, technology and consistency

Alongside expanding our footprint, we focused on integrating our operations and deploying technologies that enhance reliability, efficiency and sustainability. Progress across these areas ensures customers experience the same high-quality service at every site in our network.

Our innovation programme moved forward with the continued development plans for our automated cold store in Wolverhampton, to set a new benchmark for speed and efficiency across modern cold chain logistics.

Across the Nordics, construction activity accelerated. The design and planning at Rollsbo/Kungälv, the ongoing build at Aarhus and the enhancements at Tønsberg reflect our commitment to increasing capacity and supporting customers across Sweden, Denmark and Norway with more flexible, high-performance storage and processing options.

These infrastructure projects were complemented by the progress of our AI-powered energy optimisation trials in Denmark and Norway, which have already delivered early improvements in efficiency and emissions reduction. This work supports our long-term ambition to modernise and decarbonise our operations while maintaining reliable, cost-effective service during a period of rising energy costs.

The strengthening of our network continued through the expansion of value-added services across multiple regions, including repacking, shrink-wrapping, microwave tempering and plate freezing. All of these developing capabilities are designed to simplify customer operations and allow us to tailor support more precisely to their needs, reinforcing the importance of integration, knowledge-sharing and network-wide consistency across our cold storage facilities.

We increased our leadership capacity to support long-term growth

As our network grows, the expertise guiding our decisions becomes increasingly important. This year, we strengthened our governance to ensure every major investment and acquisition remains firmly aligned with customer needs.

A key milestone was the establishment of our Advisory Board, comprising Nils S. Andersen, Martin Bocklage, Antje Schubert and David Stuver. Together, they bring extensive experience across logistics, food, infrastructure and global transformation. Their insight enhances our ability to evaluate growth opportunities with rigour, integrate acquisitions effectively and apply proven best practice across our network.

The Advisory Board’s guidance provides a more robust foundation for long-term planning, ensuring our expansion remains disciplined, strategic and designed to deliver measurable value for customers. In a year marked by significant growth, their contribution has strengthened our ability to scale with clarity and consistency.

We became more “One Team” than ever before

As Constellation expands across Europe, the relationships between our teams become even more important in delivering fast, coordinated and consistent support for customers. This year showed the strength of a culture that enables people across countries and clusters to work together as one.

My personal highlight came in September, when more than 250 colleagues came together in Cork for the third Constellation Cup, deepening connections across the business as 17 teams competed. These relationships strengthen the informal networks that help teams collaborate quickly, share knowledge more easily and maintain high service standards during busy periods.

The culture demonstrated in Cork mirrors the way we work every day – colleagues who trust one another, communicate openly and support customers with clarity and confidence. As our network grows, this unity remains essential to ensuring customers experience a consistent, reliable service across all our sites.

Delivering for our customers

2025 has been a year of focused delivery – expanding and integrating our network with one purpose: to strengthen the value we provide to customers. We grew in key markets, entered new ones, advanced major infrastructure and automation projects and reinforced our governance through our Advisory Board. These steps have made our service more reliable, flexible and consistent across Europe.

Throughout this progress, we didn’t just act as One Team – we became more integrated than ever, turning our growing network into a more coordinated and dependable service for customers.

Thank you to our colleagues, customers and partners for the trust and collaboration that made this year possible.

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