Growth thanks to market knowledge and product portfolio

Dr. Gernot Maier is the company’s founder and today owns one third of Danubia Wood. When the forestry graduate with extensive experience in the timber industry started his own business in 2008, his idea was to establish an international timber trading company and to focus purchasing activity on the countries along the Danube.

Sought-after and found: experience in the international timber industry

“A rapidly growing professional company needs experts from the industry, who have their own networks and relevant experience,” Maier thought, who found his current co-partners Max Luger and Andreas Reiterer in 2016.

Their entry to the business marked a realignment of the company. Each of the three shareholders was given a one-third stake, and the areas of responsibility within the company were distributed among them.

True to the above-mentioned philosophy, the company, with its three business areas log wood, lumber and wood fuel trade, was named Danubia Wood Trading GmbH.

Operating worldwide

For Danubia Wood, international lumber trade is not limited to trading Central European softwood lumber worldwide. “We also purchase in Scandinavia, the Baltic states and South America – and sell softwood and hardwood lumber on global markets,” Reiterer explains. This year, the lumber trading volume will amount to around 100,000 m³.

Danubia Wood’s goal is to enable companies to enter export markets, regardless of whether they are large sawmills or small businesses with an annual cutting volume of only 10,000 m³. “Working with us makes things easier,” Luger explains. “In most cases, we act like local customers. We organize the freight, all the necessary documents, i.e. the entire service, and also assume the risk of default for our suppliers. To be successful in overseas business with us, all our partners have to do is take care of the ex-works loading of trucks or containers. We do the rest.”

“Right from the start, we focused on products that were somewhat more difficult to sell, such as main product rejects or sideboards. Only someone who knows the markets and gets the most out of everything can do that,” Reiterer says.

There’s lumber and then there’s lumber

“The main product rejects of supplier X are different from those of supplier Y. Timber trading companies, which are not oriented towards the specific requirements of the market, or the current online platforms can hardly provide our service. You need wood expertise and contacts to bring the right suppliers to the right customers,” Reiterer is convinced. Payment security is another important aspect. “With us, even exports to India are safe and punctual,” Reiterer emphasizes. “We have more than 100 customers in India – that spreads the risk. We can also store up to 60 containers in our warehouse in Mumbai for regional distribution.”

Pellets by train, truck and sometimes even by ship

The price is only one aspect, though. According to Maier, functioning logistics and well-trained employees are just as important. “The transport of pellets by train and truck is only profitable to places just south of Rome. For deliveries to southern Italy, we use containers from the Baltic states,” Luger says, giving another example.

“Many large sawmills work with us because they cannot or do not want to have their own representation on every market,” Luger explains. With this approach, the company can offer its customers many different products and ranges.

One example of optimized product and market control as well as short transport routes is the company’s intermediation to get Bulgarian briquettes to a Romanian customer.

Two new intermediaries

Danubia Wood wants to grow further in 2024. “This year, we have reached a certain limit in terms of performance. Now, we need more staff,” Maier says. Johannes Kraushofer is the newest member of the team and is tasked with tapping into new overseas markets for Danubia Wood. The company has also been in the pellet business since 2009, and was in the thick of all the ups and downs of the turbulent previous years. 2022 was a record year for Danubia Wood, too. “This year, we added a few new manufacturers,” Luger tells us. This is one reason why the company wants to focus more on the 2.9-million-t Italian market in 2024. For this purpose, Giovanni Papaccio, who has been operating on the Italian pellet market for over a decade, was brought on board.

In 2018, Danubia Wood fully entered log wood trading. Within Europe, the majority of the log wood is sold to Austria. “Last year, our sales volume already exceeded 100,000 m³ of log wood, which we delivered to our customers by rail or container,” Maier says.

Flexibility will be key in the future, too

The specialist for sophisticated products wants to remain just that in the future, too. “We offer reliable sales opportunities on various markets, even in difficult times,” Maier says, who is convinced that “we will have to be even more flexible in the future. In Europe, the resource is changing and supply is decreasing. With companies like ours, partners are given valuable insights into the market. We want to be seen as a reliable partner for our suppliers and customers, whether they are forest owners, the industry or wood fuel manufacturers,” he concludes, knowing that companies like his are quite hard to find.