A key factor in the company's creation was the desire of Bremen cotton traders to obtain an improved warehousing and trading infrastructure, including the option of issuing warehouse receipts and warrants.

The company's own initial five warehouses went into operation in 1878 on the left bank of the Weser in the Sicherheitshafen[6] – referred to since approx.

[9] In the first decade of operation, the company stored mainly grain and legumes, lard, bacon and pork, tobacco, cotton, sheep's wool and coffee.

[10] In 1888, BLG expanded its operations to the Europahafen (Free Port I) on the right bank of the Weser, which following Bremen's accession to the Customs Union (October 1888) was conceived as a free port;[11] the relevant operating agreement between Bremen and BLG dates back to May 1888.

[12] BLG played a seminal role in the development of port facilities on the right bank of the Weser up until World War I.

[17] As a reaction to the ramifications of the Great Depression, BLG introduced the so-called "Krümpersystem" in the beginning of April 1932, intended to prevent unemployment through staggered furloughing of workers.

[21][22] A similar fate befell Carl Krüger, who had been a member of the management board since 1931: Under political pressure, he requested a six-month leave of absence in September 1933, and on May 31, 1934, he retired.

[34][35] In 1959, the municipality of Bremen and BLG concluded an operating agreement, which provided that the city maintain the majority of shares.

[37] Two years later, the City of Bremen and BLG signed a contractual agreement that allowed the company to assume third-party loans in the capital market for additional projects.

[43] BLG participated in the booming container business in the 1980s, which completely reshaped the port economy and in Bremerhaven, in particular, led to the expansion of the terminals in several phases.

The recession of the world economy at the beginning of the 1980s led to layoffs of BLG employees in the industrial and commercial sector.

[46][47][48] The fall of the socialist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s/beginning of the 1990s meant significant cargo losses for BLG in the conventional business.

[48] At the beginning of the 1990s, the objective was to develop from a local port company into an international logistics group, according to Detthold Aden, who as Chairman of the Management Board promoted this change from 1999 to 2013.

Furthermore, it acquired 50 percent of the shares in the vehicle forwarding company E.H. Harms Automobile Logistics operating in Bremen and Bremerhaven.

[72] Since the end of 2022, the company has been one of 28 stand-by partners of the United Nations World Food Programme to provide logistical expertise in emergencies.

[48][76] The shares of the publicly-listed Bremer Lagerhaus-Gesellschaft -Aktiengesellschaft von 1877- are divided up between:[74] Frank Dreeke has been a member of the Management Board since the beginning of 2013.

It was built in 1954 in the so-called post-war modern international style according to blueprints from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, in collaboration with Otto Apel.

[78][79][80] Detthold Aden, the long-standing BLG Chairman of the Management Board launched the Bremer Unternehmensgespräche, a round table for business.