“Despite growing pains we have full confidence in future of Cool Port”

Not even a year ago, the cooling and freezing centre Kloosterboer Cool Port was opened amid great interest at the site of the former ECT Home Terminal. People spoke of a Flagship Store at a triple-A location in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Twelve months later, not much is left of those enthusiastic words, and some importers even decided to take their trade elsewhere. Origin Fruit Direct went in the opposite direction, and moved into Cool Port earlier this summer. “I’m not going to deny the growing pains, but I also see people working very hard to solve these,” says Randolf Aaldijk.

The state of the art building has a storage capacity of 40,000 pallets, 10,000 of which are suitable for frozen storage and 30,000 for cold storage. The ground floor has a dispatch of 7,500 square metres with 38 dock shelters, and the first floor has a (re)packing space for fresh produce, including a professional grape and blueberry line, and the new technology of laser branding can also be applied to the products here.

“I’m honestly convinced that everything functions as it should, and that we have a unique warehouse at our disposal,” Randolf says. “It just takes time. For example, they’re working with a Truck Appointment System. Drivers can’t just show up to pick up an order, and that took most planners some getting used to. But thanks to this system, we know exactly when customers come to pick up their fruit, and we no longer have unnecessary waiting times. However, this requires a bit more planning from the transporter or customer. That’s quite different from our previous location. Customers can arrive here from 7 in the morning to 11 at night, and that’s not something all cold stores can boast.”

“The Kloosterboer Cool Port site is exclusively accessible for loading and unloading if you have a CargoCard. In the end, visitors save time this way, and we register all of our visitors,” Randolf continues. “All in all, I have full confidence we’ll be working here as efficiently as possible. These new procedures and concepts are now closely watched. I do think it’s taking too long, but I understand because the project’s so enormous. There are still plenty of bottlenecks, and besides many experienced workers, there are also a lot of new people. In the end, I’m convinced we’ll be able to provide our customers with more added value, in part thanks to the in-house packing location. Kloosterboer is heading in the right direction.”

Citrus market

Finally, Randolf looks back on a fairly good market for South African citrus. “For tangerines, Satsumas had a tricky season, but the sales of Clementines and Nadorcott are now doing well again. The orange season started three weeks later than expected, and I don’t expect to catch up on those weeks. Plenty of arrivals are planned for the next few weeks. Hopefully, we’ll be able to keep prices at an acceptable level, and it won’t end up like last year, when too much product was shipped towards the duty-deadline of 15 October. Additionally, sales of grapefruit are difficult. The larger sizes, up to the 40s, aren’t a problem, but sales of the smaller sizes are very difficult, and stocks are piling up.”

Lemons are this summer’s success story. “Everyone was very cautious because of the additional plants in South Africa, but this resulted in well-regulated supply. Eight weeks of beautiful weather resulted in good demand throughout Europe, so that lemons became quite expensive contrary to all expectations. This just proves Professor Heertje right, who wrote on page one of his economics book that price is mostly decided by supply and demand. Prices of South African lemons are still at the wonderfully high level between 1.80 and 2 euro per kilo. For the next three weeks, I predict good demand. The Mediterranean production areas such as Spain and Turkey will then try to get a piece of the pie of the good market, but these early lemons aren’t appreciated by everyone.”

For more information:

Origin Fruit Direct
Albert Plesmanweg 250 - Port 2450 -
3088 GD Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Tel +31 (0)88 244 9300
randolf@originfruitdirect.nl