‘Our customers want total solutions: from the field to the supermarket’ TRADE AND MARKETING line for potatoes, onions, beet and carrots. We recently delivered such a multifunctional grading and packaging line to a big customer in Belarus. That line also had a washing installation and a polisher. China is still an upcoming market, they are not as advanced as Russia as far as packaging lines for table potatoes are concerned. Brazil and Argentina are different stories altogether. They are interested in our lines, but exporters like us have to deal with very high import levies. If they want us to build a complete packaging line, we first make a design of the line. They buy the key components of the line from us, because there’s no local equivalent available, but they often buy the tyres and roll tables locally.’ Money is no object, or so it seems? ‘Yes, that’s true, but we don’t focus on the lowest segment in the market. That market is already provided for. We want to add extra value. The investment is, of course, an important factor, but it’s not our intention to win an order at the lowest price, but more to provide the customer with a solution. It often concerns big entrepreneurs who want to invest heavily and also want to continue expanding. That’s certainly the case in Russia. For us, this means that we must look ahead together with them. We often ask them the question: how food-safe do you want your lines to be? In most cases, they haven’t really thought about that before. They know, of course, that the supermarkets will come to them with that question one day. But, based on our experience, that day usually comes much faster than they think. To prepare them for that, we can advise them to buy food-safe equipment. Machinery without any wood or sheet metal work, but only plastic, for example. As much stainless steel as possible and blue rolls in the grading line instead of grey ones, because that’s better for inspection. You can distinguish the tare better from the product. Customers appreciate our sharing ideas with them, and it gives added value for which they are prepared to pay.’ How do you stand out from your competitors? ‘At APH Group Engineering, we have people working with years of experience at APH and who originally come from the agro business. So all our staff are used to thinking and acting from the viewpoint of the basic product. They know how a product like the potato grows, is lifted and finally ends up in the storehouse. This means that they also know about things that can go wrong. What happens when you harvest under too wet conditions, when the drop is too high or the temperatures too low or too variable. They know that, when you wash and dry a product, the storage time in the bag is limited. You can’t send the bags to the supermarket three weeks after packaging. That’s the sort of advice you need to give to the customers in the countries we do business with. If you don’t do that, your machines are blamed. We also do very well in the countries I’ve just mentioned due to our having years of local experience there. We have our own branches there and well-trained staff. They come from the region, speak the language, know the people and, of course, our machines.’ You tell me that you do a lot of business with Russia and the Ukraine. Does the tension between those two countries affect your trade? ‘Yes and no. Trade with the Ukraine is currently on the backburner. The people there have other things to think about. That won’t change as long as the tensions continue. When everything is back to normal, I see the trade going back to normal quickly enough. As regards business in Russia, it’s more or less the opposite there. Business continues without any problems. It’s now March and we’ve noticed, for example, that the Russians need seed urgently. The growers there want to go ahead and hope that the borders for seed potatoes will be opened as soon as possible. That will definitely happen. A problem that has meanwhile arisen is that the rouble, the Russian currency, has devalued a lot. European seed and also the machinery have become considerably more expensive for the Russians. They’ve been rather spoiled with their strong currency for a long time. They know that and that’s why they’re not too upset about the drop in value. At any rate, I don’t expect much restraint in the short term where orders are concerned. It might become more bothersome in the long term. The rouble’s return to its original value is expected to be much slower than its fall.’ Could that be of influence on your total activities in the coming years? ‘For now, we’re only seeing a growth market for special products such as packaging lines. The number of countries and the market in which we operate is big enough for that. That’s ultimately the reason why we created a special branch for that within APH. We definitely see enormous expansion possibilities. The demand for added value for products such as table potatoes is still not over in the areas in which we do business. In many areas, they have only just started. Parallel to this we also expect an increase in the green business, or the agro branch of our company. An increase in big processing units will also need more storage space and product supply. These developments often run parallel. This also means more trade in storage equipment and machinery for field work such as planting and lifting machines. We can supply it all. And that’s what our customers want. They want total solutions from field to supermarket. And what they also want more of is service. What I mean is process monitoring. For example, if we see on the storage computer that the temperature of a newly-stored product is dropping fast after a few days, we’ll raise the alarm and ask: what’s going wrong? The product is still in its wound-healing period, but the temperature is going down much too fast. Why? The grower may have a plausible explanation for this, but he may also have no idea what’s happening. That’s the service those clients are waiting for and that’s our future.’ ● Leo Hanse Potato World 2014 • number 2 7 Pagina 6

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