Information you can trust. Welcome to F&L, where senior freight logistics leaders & their teams shape their own international strategies through confidential, invitation-only roundtable peer & expert exchange, enabling them to implement a more effective response to market changes.
Agenda: Collaboration provides a critical strategic opportunity in disruptive times. Accelerated changes in global trade as reflected across supply chains, Europe’s competitive position and the desire for greater harmonisation, driving value-added collaboration through clusters in logistics and other industrial hubs, and illustrated by the specific needs of Europe’s Defence sector.
Meeting date & location: 22-23 April 2026, North Sea Port (Ghent) & Port of Antwerp-Bruges. Networking gala dinner 22 April.
What to expect: Leaders’ round-table discussion agenda, community-led, <140 participants, no sales pitches. F&L is a neutral (independent), non-lobby members’ forum. F&L meetings are based around debate, panel discussions, workshops & site visits rather than presentations, thus ensuring opportunity and full participation by all. F&L competition law & antitrust.
Costs: €450 card/ €500 payment by invoice + relevant VAT. These discounted rates apply to F&L members: non-member companies pay €2,000 + VAT.
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This event is hosted by North Sea Port & Port of Antwerp-Bruges, and other key partners are shown below.
Collaboration provides a critical strategic opportunity in disruptive times. Accelerated changes in global trade as reflected across supply chains, Europe’s competitive position and the desire for greater harmonisation, driving value-added collaboration through clusters in logistics and other industrial hubs, and illustrated by the specific needs of Europe’s Defence sector. The market is changing. We look at how this is reflected through global impacts on Europe, its collaborative logistics hubs and the way that individual companies drive customer value. The F&L network crystallised its priorities (KPI benchmarking throughout 2025) to meet those changes. Now we discuss Europe’s freight logistics sector positioning, competitiveness & collaborative capabilities in order for each company to select its success criteria and target future scenario within a chosen collaborative ecosystem.
see ‘travel & venues’ tab
09:15 coffee & registration
09:45, Welcome from Sofie Bracke (Alderman for Economy, Port, Trade, Tourism – City of Ghent), F&L Krzysztof Szmidt (President) and Philip Evans (Secretary General)
Buffeted by the changing international order, global supply chain models are radically restructuring including access to sustainable fuels, the emergence of E2E players and the requirement for asset ownership or access to capacity. Heightened pressure on European competitiveness adds to uncertainty. Leaders address how value-added collaborative solutions are evolving at key logistics and industrial hubs.
11:15 cast off & coffee
Based on how freight logistics provide value-added solutions at key points (hubs) in the global supply chain and the interplay with different stakeholder roles, actions & collaborations, we look at our ability to compete through resilience, innovation and a fertile regulatory environment.
Lunch & visit: Change in action
Driven by global change and particularly by war in Europe, the transformation of Europe’s defence sector brings into sharp focus our current issues around infrastructure, military mobility requirements and the need for harmonisation and consistency across Europe to support our defence and other industrial sectors and their competitiveness. Also a new sector for logistics.
What are the market signals? Today’s criteria for sustainable (long term) success? Building a holistic view of market value-added strategies for the sector at sea and on land, we examine criteria and actions for value added positioning at maritime hubs and across Europe.
16:15 disembark & transfer to Antwerp
19:00 Gala reception evening programme, Port of Antwerp-Bruges
09:00 Welcome
Academic review – reflections, strategies, Q&A. Environmental, regulatory & economic sustainability criteria are changing how commercial success will be measured tomorrow. What criteria matters for our scenario planning?
Examples & case studies
Workshops. What is your company’s target scenario: outcome & aim? Criteria for investing? Priorities? Rapidly moving through workshops, you score variables impacting goal(s) and work through scenario planning.
Thanks, close, next steps & lunch
15:30 Close
are encouraged to arrive evening of 21 April and depart after 15:30 on 23 April. Direct trains from Brussels Zaventem airport (BRU) to Antwerp Centraal take approx 35 mins. Our base is two Radisson hotels located beside Antwerp Centraal (see map below). From here, we will travel with ease between Ghent & Antwerp and also into the Port of Antwerp-Bruges.
Wed 22 April
Thurs 23 April
A mix of discounted sleeping hotels reserved in Antwerp for nights of Tues 21 & Wed 22 April 2026. Discount codes are in the registration confirmation email.
This meeting is for senior business leaders & their teams; people who are actively leading industry today.
Participants include the following:
Baltic Rail
Bertschi
BLS Cargo
Borealis
Brunngård Group
Cargill
CFL multimodal
CLdN
CMB Tech
duisport
Edinburgh Business School, Heriot Watt University
Elite Digital Logistics
Eraneos
European Union Military Staff
ExxonMobil
ICO Terminals
Kühne Logistics University
NATO
North Sea Port
Pioneer Point Partners
Pipelink
Plymouth University
Port of Antwerp-Bruges
Port of Calais
Port of Valencia
PureCycle
Quality Group
Razor Group
Rhenus
Seerefine
SSI Schäfer
TESA
Transporeon
University of Antwerp
Verbrugge International
Vinturas
VOS Logistics
Zaragoza Logistics Center (ZLC) / MIT Global Scale Network
Participant list for F&L at Nike (Oct 2025)
Participant list for Poland (Apr 2025)
Participant list for Zaragoza Spain (Oct 2024)
F&L is a unique business network for commercial senior freight logistics practitioners & their teams to shape their own international strategies through confidential, invitation-only roundtable peer & expert exchange, enabling them to choose more effective responses to market forces. Established 1994.
Mission – F&L has a single purpose: to exploit knowledge, skills and collaborative opportunities across the freight logistics sector to drive improved standards, learnings & the success of Members of the community.
How is this achieved? F&L is structured as a neutral (independent), not-for-profit, non-lobby, confidential, antitrust compliant Members’ forum and is registered in Belgium as an ASBL. Multi-stakeholder membership is deliberately balanced to ensure a variety of perspectives across a host of variables.
Members are global / regional heads of logistics & supply chain, CEOs & senior management focused on freight logistics across the supply chain, asset owners, founders of critical solutions, all industry sectors and transport modes, based across Europe & globally (list).
“The important thing is to avoid the ‘narrow’ trap & the echo chamber”
“Access to informed external views & sheer breadth which it is not possible to organise by yourself”
“Where else can you ask questions openly and listen to others doing the same?”
“Learn, benchmark & challenge”
“We make better, more informed, more robust decisions”
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North Sea Port is the binational port that combines the platforms of Ghent (BE), Terneuzen (NL) and Vlissingen (NL). It is the largest cross-border port in Europe and is characterized by its diverse industrial cluster and multi-modal logistics ecosystem. It accounts yearly for 12.7bn euros in added value and can count more than 500 companies in its port area. |
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Port of Antwerp-Bruges is the second largest port in Europe, with more than 300 liner services to more than 800 destinations, thereby ensuring worldwide connectivity. Every year, it handles around 280 million tonnes of international maritime cargo and it is home to Europe’s largest integrated chemical cluster. The port employs, directly and indirectly, a total of around 164,000 people and generates added value of more than €21 billion. As such, it is an important lifeline for the Belgian economy. |
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Cargill is a family company committed to providing food and agricultural solutions to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. We sit at the heart of the supply chain, partnering with producers and customers to source, make and deliver products that are vital for living. In Europe, Cargill is also an important supplier of bioenergy solutions, including Cargill Bio100, supporting the transition towards more sustainable transport and helping decarbonize the logistics sector. |
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Founded in 1956 by Hans and Rolf Bertschi, Bertschi is a family owned company headquartered in Dürrenäsch, Switzerland. Bertschi has established a leading position in the intermodal transportation of chemicals by rail, road, and water in Europe and is today a leading global provider of ISOtank transportation and value-added logistics services for the chemical industry. This includes a global offering in freight management as well as several Bertschi logistics facilities across Europe and in Asia. |
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Billiet & Co is a reputed business law firm providing a range of services in commercial and contract law; conflict (re)solution; asset recovery, insolvency and (re)structuring procedures, and EU regulatory and competition law. Its team is at the forefront of current and future legal practices and is committed to using their knowledge and experience to deliver excellence. |