The ColdHub — a Dutch base for UK frozen food entering the EU

We've recently joined BFFF. Since our whole reason for existing is frozen food crossing borders, an introduction seems in order.

The ColdHub is an automated frozen storage and trade hub in Dordrecht, just south of Rotterdam with Antwerp equally within reach. We hold 35,000 pallet places at −20°C and handle customs and trade administration in-house.

For UK producers, the difficulty is rarely the freezing or the shipping. It's what the European customer asks for. They want delivery inside the EU, priced in euros, from a supplier who carries the customs and VAT risk. Meeting that normally means setting up a Dutch entity, registering for VAT, appointing a customs agent and finding cold storage — twelve months of work before the first pallet moves.

We are that structure, available from your first shipment.

What that looks like in practice

• Fiscal representation. You use our Dutch VAT registration, so import VAT is deferred rather than pre-financed, and you don't need a company here.



• Bonded storage. Goods sit under customs supervision. No duty and no VAT until they actually leave for a customer — and if they leave the EU again, never at all.



• Veterinary-approved facility for products of animal origin. Goods are checked at the border control post in Rotterdam and move to us under customs supervision.



• Automated picking at −20°C. Goods-to-man robotics, mixed pallets, order sizes down to around ten boxes. Useful if your EU customers want a range rather than a full pallet per line.



• Onward export. Once goods are with us, they can go to EU customers or leave Europe again. That decision stays open until the last moment.


The building is new: BREEAM Excellent, 10,000 solar panels on the roof, fully automated pallet storage.

If you're selling into the EU, or considering it, we're glad to talk it through — including the parts that don't apply to you.