Delhaize's road to customer success
Let's sit down with Jonathan Van Dessel, Director of Transport at Delhaize Belgium, to discuss their strategic partnership with Van Moer Logistics and how it has helped shape their logistics operations in the highly competitive retail sector. Flexibility is key in Delhaize’s logistics operations, especially with their unique pull model, which requires the ability to scale transport capacity quickly.
Delhaize & Van Moer Logistics
100
trucks
14
terminal vehicles
209
active employees
2011
start partnership
800
stores
24/7
service
Partners since 2011
Delhaize Belgium is part of the Ahold Delhaize Group which operates in 11 countries and on 3 continents. Sustainable entrepreneurship is part of its daily operation, but Delhaize is primarily responding to its commercial mission: "Bringing emotion around the table with its own unique products to each of its customers." And that requires well-stocked shelves and therefore efficient logistics.
Challenges for Delhaize
Jonathan: "Having made the strategic choice as a Retailer to go 100% for a model with affiliates, it makes our focus clearer. It ensures that we can be even more responsive to our customer expectations, and that we can profile ourselves even more as a professional Logistics company. We therefore set the bar very high for ourselves. This is necessary in the logistics environment in which Delhaize operates today and in which we actively supply our store network 24/7. This approach has been a deliberate choice in our 157-year history.
Moreover, our member entrepreneurs are still true entrepreneurs. This means that they usually determine the size of order volumes themselves according to the needs of their specific store. This unique pull model in the retail landscape requires our distribution centers and transport to be able to cope with significant fluctuations in demand. Flexibility is the key to quickly scaling up our transport capacity when necessary. During the summer months, for example, if we know on Thursday that the weekend promises to be BBQ weather, we need to be able to switch immediately so that extra trucks are on our sites on Friday. In other words, our needs can change very quickly. Transport has therefore also become an important strategic pillar for Delhaize within the B2B2C model.
To provide perfect "on-time" and "in-full" service in that flexible framework, good drivers and/or driver training are essential. Of course, we cannot do that alone. Cooperating with the right strategic partners is therefore crucial."
Strategic solutions
Jonathan: "Our cooperation with Van Moer Logistics started in 2011. Delhaize then had its own transport company Wambacq-Peeters, which we left to Van Moer Logistics at that time. This way we could concentrate on our core business. We opted for a professional, experienced and well-established transporter that -as said- could meet our high demands in the field of quality and flexibility.
It soon became clear that Van Moer Logistics also had that unique eye for detail in retail. That small "pinch of magic" is really necessary to be able to supply our very large store network -from the city center to the heart of the countryside and from Belgium to Luxembourg. You also have to be able to dock trucks faultlessly in a wide variety of environments, because our stores are not located in large industrial parks. To be honest, not everyone can do that.
You have to know that delivering to more than 800 stores requires a different finesse than delivering goods in, for example, the port area. That attitude was immediately right with the specialists of Van Moer Logistics.
Since then, our partnership has only grown. Meanwhile, Van Moer Logistics does besides transport also the attaching and pulling away of trailers to the right docking stations, the so-called on-site "spotter operation". They relieve us also there with their logistic expertise. The retail world is one that is constantly and rapidly changing. You have to be able to respond to volume evolutions and to sometimes unforeseen circumstances. Van Moer Logistics has proven to be a very stable and reliable partner in this. We can almost blindly count on them. Van Moer Logistics has become a real strategic partner for Delhaize.
Our long-term contract also helps Van Moer Logistics to invest in training, in attracting the right profiles and in making the fleet more sustainable. Thus it becomes a win-win for both partners."
Results and future objectives
Jonathan: "There are 209 people working at Van Moer Logistics in 3 shifts and that full time and 7 on 7. Every day we deploy 14 "Terbergs" who take care of the pre-loads on-site and about 100 trucks for the supply of the Delhaize branches. The scale and flexibility of their service make the difference for us. It allows us, as a distribution center, to profile ourselves every day to our Delhaize stores as a reliable logistics partner with a rock-solid service.
We have been able to build a strategic partnership with Van Moer Logistics in the broadest possible sense. Also at difficult moments we can count on them and that of course creates a close bond. Finally, the "lion" of Delhaize is also partly in them. Delhaize & Van Moer Logistics is a long-term cooperation and a growth story of which we are very proud."
