Brucargo Award
"Our goal is to supply flexible logistic solutions to our customers," says Frank van Gelder, Business manager at Adelantex. "Our main import markets are Africa, (North Africa (Egypt and Morocco), West Africa (Senegal to Cameroon) Central and East Africa (Dem Rep Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania) and North America (East and West Coast). After that come South America and Asia.
Around 30% of our shipments are tropicals, tropical fruit and vegetables. This ranges from the classic Kenyan beans, to the pineapples, mango and papayas. The volume is around 25,000 tonnes. Besides these products we transport and treat a lot of seafood and flowers. In short, we're good at 'time and condition critical airfreight' and especially imports. These are products that each have to be transported in a certain condition, temperature or controlled atmosphere. We are in a very limited niche market with fruits and vegetables, the 'ready to eat' segment. We have an important share of all the fruits and vegetables that are transported by air. We make sure that a top product is transported fresh from the plantations to the shelves."
Airfreight Africa-Europe grown enormously
"In the past few years we have gone through a nice increase. Not so much in fruits and vegetables, which have remained fairly stable. But we have in other segments such as flowers and fish. In genera,l the market share of airfreight transport from Africa to Europe has grown enormously. So far the African market, by definition, has been focussed strongly on France, and from the start this is what we've been orientated towards. Beans, on the other hand, go to Holland more often. Yet we see a growing interest for African tropicals in other European countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany. Our focus will remain on France for the time being. This is a very specific market - almost fresh market sales. In Paris we drive into the fridges around the back and the customer is waiting for the product at the front. It's very different from in the retail industry." The business manager believes that Europe will remain the cradle for the import of fruits and vegetables. "If we speak of airplane products we can see that 550,000 tonnes of tropicals are flown to Europe. 350,00 tonnes of this comes from the African continent. Europe remains the biggest importer from Africa. After this come South America, North America and Asia."
"In the ready to eat segment we can see two types of developments. On one side certain consumers are very price conscious and want these products as basic products for a lower price. There is also a group who don't mind paying more. Africa has top organic products that are finding their way into the Scandinavian and Eastern European markets more and more. But the quality has to be top notch. I can also see an increase in the consumption of typical tropicals. But this varies greatly per product. If the consumption of pineapples increases it will be the top quality for very specific markets."
Strategic position
"Belgium is a reasonably small country. But the strategic position of the airport in Brussels means that Belgium is very important as an import gate for airfreight. We are very central in the consumption market of Western Europe and this means that we can bring our products to the final customer due to good consolidation and trucking. "Due to an optimal planning at the plantation, planes and trucking, we manage to organise all the logistics in just 48 hours. For instance, the shipment will come from the heart of Africa and will be brought to a retailer, fresh market or wholesaler's door. We have the whole logistics chain under tight control."
Adelantex is worth over 10% of all import shipments at Brussels Airport. "Our cooled warehouse is at the platform of the airport. This way the products can be build up and treated in optimal condition. After that they can be loaded into trucks on the other side of the building immediately. This is done extremely fast, but our products require it. A big advantage in the transport is that we work a lot with passenger airlines. Brussels Airlines, for instance, is situated in Brussels and has a strong African network. They are pretty much always flying. We optimise these flights with a product that we have created together, called Fresh2shelf. We fly a comparable Fresh2door product of perishable with DHL Aviation. They have punctual flights with planes that they also carry their express products with. Once in a while we also use charter flights. But regular flights are our preference, as they make us able to optimise our supply times. This way our customers can have their cargo within 48 hours regularly."
For more information:
Frank van Gelder
Adelantex NV
Building 701
BE-1931 Brucargo Zaventem
Tel: +32 2 752 88 00
Fax: +32 2 752 88 22
www.adelantex.com
[email protected]
For more information:
Frank van Gelder
Adelantex NV
Building 701
BE-1931 Brucargo Zaventem
Tel: +32 2 752 88 00
Fax: +32 2 752 88 22
www.adelantex.com
[email protected]
