History
Our origin. Our milestones.
Our history. Transformation for innovation.
Entrepreneurship has existed in the Grotebrune family for generations: the willingness to change things and help shape them. To influence what happens in certain areas of the economy. The family attaches great importance to sustainable business practices and fair treatment of employees. They always have.
As with so many family businesses with a long tradition, our path was not a straightforward one: what began as a laundry in the late 19th century became the cornerstone of today’s group of companies for individual logistics solutions a good 100 years later with the founding of the first freight forwarding company. And we want to continue to successfully write this story. In Lage and worldwide.
1874
Foundation
DBL Kotzenberg, Grotebrune family
1982
Foundation: Spedition Reibchen, Helmut Grotebrune.
As a classic truck forwarding agent with 30 trucks, goods from large companies such as BASF, Hoffmann’s Stärke and Dorus Leime (now Henkel) were transported to customers and also stored.
1993
Foundation
RedLine with Helmut Grotebrune as shareholder and managing director.
2005
Foundation: Spedition mw1, Jens Grotebrune and Klaus Grotebrune.
The sudden death of Helmut Grotebrune at the age of 58 left the family wondering what to do next – especially as the business model of a trucking company with a few major customers was no longer viable.
Jens Grotebrune brought new impressions and ideas with him from his training at Kühne & Nagel, and so Klaus and Jens decided to put these ideas into practice.
At the time, Klaus was managing an industrial laundry with 150 employees in Hövelhof, but trusted his cousin’s ideas and joined the new company.
mw1 was founded at Meierweg 1 – hence the name.
2012
Purchase & revitalization of the Bergmann Möbel industrial sector into a modern logistics and commercial site, Jens Grotebrune and Klaus Grotebrune.
Klaus and Jens became aware of the old furniture factory in Kachtenhausen due to the constantly growing need for space and the demand for modern, approved storage space. Here they found a total of 98 (!) buildings, almost all of which were in a desolate state; internal working title: “Vereinigte Hüttenwerke”. However, two large hall buildings were so appealing that the two entrepreneurs decided to buy the entire complex and modernize it from the ground up. All requirements relating to building law, fire protection, occupational health and safety were to be implemented at the highest level.
2014
Merger of mw1 and RedLine Internationale Spedition.
As a tenant and customer of mw1, the RedLine forwarding company was already a reliable partner at the old location in Bad Salzuflen.
For this reason, they moved to Lage together, at that time still in separate offices.
At the end of 2014, the opportunity arose to take over Spedition RedLine.
The perfect match!
The Grotenbrunes didn’t think twice and have been offering comprehensive logistics services from a single source ever since: with mw1 as a specialist for land transport and warehouse logistics and RedLine as a specialist forwarder for air freight, sea freight, rail freight and customs.
2016
Foundation: mw1group group of companies.
Constant growth always leads to changes in the structure of a company. In order to make even better use of existing synergies and become more effective, the mw1group was introduced as an “umbrella brand”. All tasks and activities that affect both mw1 and RedLine are located here. These include IT, HR, accounting and sales.
2017
RedLine branch office: Münster (FMO).
“You don’t transplant a rooted tree …” – that’s how we felt about Rodrigo, who we really wanted to win over for our team. So we created a classic win-win situation: Founding a branch at Münster-Osnabrück Airport (FMO) and “signing” Rodrigo as branch manager – it couldn’t have worked out better!
2018-2020
RedLine branch offices: Frankfurt / Hamburg / Rotterdam.
These are the most important hubs on the logistics map of Europe, and of course we wanted to be there. At these locations, we support partners and businesses directly on site, while processing takes place at the Lage & FMO locations.
2022
Office expansion and relocation RedLine.
Finally, the time had come: what belongs together has come together. With a state-of-the-art 800 m² new office building, RedLine finally had an open-plan office that was designed according to the latest findings in the fields of acoustic construction and workplace effectiveness. As a learning from the Corona era, there are now also sufficient meeting rooms, all of which are equipped with modern ventilation systems with HEPA filters. Height-adjustable desks, air conditioning and shading round off the modern office feel.
mw1group
