“Safety and neatness
come first and
foremost.”
– Dennis Kompier
Dennis Kompier covers quite some (kilo)metres on his cart in the hall of Koornstra & Co. As cold storage manager he is responsible for several of the many product groups in the company.
A cold storage manager at Koornstra & Co cannot be a chilly person. In the cold storage containers it is quite cold, usually about three to four degrees. The cold will not hurt cold storage manager Dennis Kompier, though. “In summer it is actually ideal. And in winter you can dress yourself to stand the cold. Still, sometimes when I drive back home, I do turn up the heating in my car a bit, he jokes. By now he has worked in De Lier for some four years. First as an order picker and via the Dispatch department he became cold storage manager. He drives his pallet truck towards one of the cold storage containers which he manages. His truck displays an iPad showing an overview of the different supplies. Dennis’s telephone rings frequently. “Can you get down some Eryngii mushrooms please?”, he asks a colleague passing by on a forklift truck after one of those telephonic requests.
Throughout the day colleagues are driving to and fro with ordered products. “In this process safety and the neatness of orders come first and foremost”, says Dennis, who sharply monitors the quantity of supplies. “Every day we count our stock. We start with that around 7.00 a.m. Sometimes we find a small deviation in the stock”, the Rotterdammer explains. “To give an example: here we have mini pak choi, true pak choi and Shanghai pak choi. A small mistake may be made on a slip so that the wrong variety of pak choi was removed the day before. By counting carefully, we make sure every day that everything adds up again for everybody.”
When Dennis started working for Koornstra & Co, he had no experience at all in the fruit and vegetables and potatoes branch. “I did have experience in logistics. Before this I used to work in a company that specialised in toiletries. I was also a planner there, but after a few years I found out that sitting in an office all day long was not really my cup of tea. My best mate also works here as cold storage manager. It is through him that I came to work for Koornstra.” That choice agrees very well with him. “Time flies every day. And we have beautiful products to work with. I also really like it that we can take a small crate of fruit and vegetables home every week against a small payment.”
“Safety and neatness
come first and
foremost.”
– Dennis Kompier
Dennis, too, praises the atmosphere of good-fellowship in the team. “We are always there for each other. I also enjoy the variety of things that I do. Now I am a cold storage manager, but it may well be so in a while that I am only going to pick orders again for a couple of months. That variety really appeals to me.”