Download this article in PDF in English - Dutch - Italian - German - Romanian
VAEX IN ROMANIA
With its staff of six, our office in Arad is truly a strong force within the VAEX family. The sales staff in Romania, and certainly also the sales support staff, have scaled up VAEX operations in the Eastern European market, raising the company’s profile in the process. Romania, but also Hungary and other countries in the region are now part of the territory served by VAEX.
The team in Arad, which is made up entirely of women, maintains a close working relationship with their customers and colleagues that is characterised by a personal and informal approach. The office exudes heart for the business and the connection with the team back in the Netherlands is becoming stronger and stronger. One big VAEX family is what we want to build!
The Romanian team has plenty of experience in the market, knows nearly all the farmers and trading companies, and speaks their customers’ language and knows their culture. These qualities have enabled VAEX Romania to develop into a leading player in the market. But VAEX wants more! The commercial goal for 2020 is to grow in the current markets in Eastern Europe, and to pioneer in new markets in the region. These efforts will hinge largely on being successful in further raising VAEX’s profile. Also on the supply side, they want to grow; from piglets to carcasses, vertical integration and optimisation is the goal.
VAEX has been selling pig carcasses in Romania for 3 years now. It started out as an incidental thing, but pig carcass sales have gradually become a structural revenue stream over the past 2 years. In 2019, they sold five shipments a week. The goal for 2020 is to take this up to eight shipments a week. Given the uncertain developments with respect to long-distance animal transport, this is a good segment to develop further.
Besides pig carcass sales, VAEX will also further develop its meat trading operations in 2020. VAEX has identified demand among customers in Romania in this market and has, therefore, decided to find medium-size abattoirs and meat processing companies in its network that are not yet present in the Romanian market or only have limited operations in Romania. We intend to make all this happen while downsizing our fleet at the same time. From now on, VAEX Spedition SRL will be working without having its own fleet, instead re-engaging former partners and charters to transport the shipments.
Besides commercial goals, they have also set internal goals. Office staff will be more proactive in supporting the commercial team, so as to enable the commercial team to go out into the field more often. This means that all office activities will revolve around the trading operations. Seeing as VAEX is set to diversify into the meat market, office staff is going to have to acquire new knowledge and study this new market. Another challenge that our office staff in Romania is facing is that they are going to have to take on sales support work, given that much of the transport administration work will cease. With help from the head office in the Netherlands, VAEX Romania will take on these challenges with a positive mindset in 2020.
In a nutshell, a close-knit team that wants to get ahead. A highly promising member of the VAEX family.
