The Greenery from eight locations to three in three years

The reorganisation of The Greenery, given the name Phoenix is in full swing. With Phoenix - a reference to the legendary bird which is reborn from the ashes of its predecessor - is making serious cuts to once more become a profitable organisation. The number of locations will be reduced over three years from eight to three with a retail DC in Barendrecht, a trade DC in Bleiswijk and an seperate soft fruit centre in Breda.

"In the future we will make more use of the growing locations and make these more suitable for clients and direct client handling There is a plan which we will work further on with growers and customers," said the spokesman. "Within three years we want to reduce the number of locations from eight to three and centralise activities, where we will assign a product group and speciality to each location, so that in the DCs we can further standardize our processes and work more efficiently. We want to deliver the same performance with fewer people."

On the subject of job losses - Fruitnet stated it would be a third of the 1200 employees - the spokes person would not comment. "Fruitnet did not verify this information with us. The reorganization has taken place over the entire core business. With the people who are declared surplus there are agreements on how long they will remain working for The Greenery. Last Friday all the available vacancies were published internally and in the next two weeks the application procedures will receive a lot of attention to ensure that our people can get back to work as quickly as possible."

"The focus remains on Retail, but that does not mean we think the Trade customers are less important. What we have seen in recent years is that they have different requirements for the handling of their product. Within retail, there are often specific requirements related to packaging, while trade customers buy volume and want flexible and quick loading. With retail customers you have more insight on the forecasts, while with trade customers more can depend on the changing supply to the market."

Local production remains a focal point for The Greenery. "In commerce, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom are focus markets and we know that it is important for the latter two countries to have product supply on the spot. Supply of product in the tactical implementation of the strategic plan is an important part." The spokesman said that it is absolutely the aim to remain the leading supplier of Dutch fruit and vegetables. This because we believe and have confidence that this strategy is feasible."

In the appointment of interim director Okke Koo The Greenery stated that it was a temporary appointment until mid-2014. According to the spokesperson, there is no reason to believe that this will change. "The appointment of the new director was down to the Board."