The bankruptcy of 100-year-old company GOES Transport caused a shockwave in the fruit and veg sector a year ago. Kivits-Drunen was about to double its new, conditioned distribution in Waalwijk, but when talking to GOES, it turned out that apart from mutual trust, there were also many benefits in a joint relaunch of the Handling Centre. Rob van Opzeeland and Ad Goes talk about the company and look to the future: “We don’t have to become the biggest logistical service provider in the Netherlands, but we want to unburden our customers and deal with our stakeholders in a sustainable manner.”
“The Kivits-Drunen strategy is not to be the biggest in the Netherlands, although maybe in some segments we are, but we’ve always looked for more added value for our customers, for instance by utilizing the sister companies, which operate in forwarding, logistical process engineering and packaging products. Without a strong growth scenario, our group now has nine distribution centres, six of which refrigerated, nearly 250 employees and one hundred trucks on the road. Our ability to respond fast in fruit means there’s often produce from former GOES clients at Kivits and vice versa. We already had big clients in imported fruit, but in a different segment than GOES. GOES was an authority in conditioned transport to Germany, while our clients were more focused on the retail market, and across the pond. Both companies were thus nicely in line with each other, and by stacking the volume we have also been able to work more efficiently,” Rob says.
Asked about the biggest challenge for the future, Rob answers: “The keyword is added value. Import flows of fruit are visibly changing. The goods are increasingly coming in through programmes, and you’d be surprised at the amount of containers coming in here that are sent to the client within 24 hours, with additional proceedings taking place. The traditional bulk storage is decreasing. One of the reasons why we’re doing well these days as well, is that we’re constantly looking to add value for our customers. We have been growing by 10 to 20% a year on average for the past decade. It’s not our ambition to grow, but apparently we’re doing something right. By adding value and doing things more smartly, in the end we’re trying to make real improvements in the chain. But that doesn’t happen automatically. To cite my fellow villager, hockey coach Marc Lammers: “Winners have a plan, losers have an excuse.”
