The transport sector has been dealt a few blows over the last years. According to Jakub Ostrowski, CEO for Polish logistics provider FreshQ, their experience has made them stronger in the current market: “FreshQ Transport is a private company, run by 3 co-owners. Our journey with Benelux started over 15 years ago, when we started work in a Polish transport company, handling transport of bananas from Antwerpen to Poland. During this time, we gained a lot of experience in the transport of fresh fruit and vegetables, and also learned the specifics of work in the refrigerated transport of fresh products. When we founded FreshQ Transport, we naturally continued our specialization. We had our own unique idea on how to use our specialist knowledge to create a company that fulfils market requirements, while simultaneously operating in a style that distinguishes us from the competition.”
The fact that FreshQ is mostly active in the Benelux shouldn’t be a surprise, Ostrowski explains, as important factors make this region interesting. “The Netherlands and Belgium have the two largest ports in Europe, through which huge amounts of overseas fruit are transported, and Dutch companies are among the leaders in the export of fresh fruit and vegetables in Europe. We saw great potential in this direction. Over time, we developed our services to include Dutch and Belgian vegetable producers.”
As was the case in many industries, the pandemic changed the landscape of the logistical field, Ostrowski states: “During my over 15 year career in refrigerated transport, Covid was the most unprecedented period I've ever seen. This undoubtedly resulted in smaller quantities of transported goods, much higher quality and hygiene requirements at retail recipients, improving product safety procedures and increased requirements for logistics operators, especially in the food sector. Increased sea transport costs, lower availability of containers, more unpredictability of deliveries to ports, this all meant that road transport must be more flexible and more reliable, in order to achieve a competitive advantage in this short section of the entire supply chain. Sea transport certainly had a significant impact on product prices, with prices literally exploding.”
“The implementation of all product safety procedures has resulted in an increase in market awareness of the everyday risks concerning food transport. We’ve been very aware of the requirements imposed on us by the transport of food products from the very beginning. We have been IFS certified from the start and made sure that our procedures are at the highest level of safety. Thanks to COVID, this awareness reached a much larger group of road carriers, who were forced to implement their own, at least basic safety procedures.”
According to Ostrowski, the greatest focus for innovations for transport is currently placed on ecology and reducing gas emission: “I believe that these factors will be crucial in the further development of the transport industry, not only in the fresh products sector. However, from our point of view, the work systems of individual companies are becoming more and more innovative. We see that our clients concentrate a lot on ‘tracking’, on controlling their products at every stage of the supply chain to ensure that no mistakes have been made and the quality of the product will be maintained. Requirements in this matter mean that transport companies should move into implementation of digitalization, developing their IT systems, which must be centralized with many other systems operating in the company, from GPS or control temperature conditions on the trailer and conditions in the warehouse, to electronic document.”
The higher costs of doing business is a major challenges for any industry, and it’s certainly the case for transport, Ostrowski says. “I believe that the main challenges for transport companies at the moment, not only in transport on the line Benelux-Poland but throughout Europe, are the increases in operating costs of transport companies, the number of legislative requirements, the protection of their national markets by individual Member States and still a large lack of drivers on the market. In addition, there are high requirements related to environmental protection and, in my opinion, technology in route transport, which does not keep up innovatively with these requirements.”
There's not always a clear solution that can be implemented by a company. For example, there's the lack of drivers, which is becoming a serious issue in Poland: “We have no influence on certain aspects of the operation, such as fuel prices, road operation, local national road tolls or minimum salary requirements in a specific UE Members State. The transport company must compensate, first of all, with its own, excellent work organization, which will reduce costs. In addition, a flat organizational structure, highly specialized staff and maximum focus on the processes working in the company. A completely separate topic is the large lack of drivers on the market of Polish transport companies. In this case, foreigners do not fill the gap in the market. Polish drivers are getting older, the percentage of young drivers starting their profession is still very small, and the Polish government is doing nothing to promote this profession among society.”
Ostrowski hopes they can reach more clients, as they're ready to expand: "We're a solid logistics provider specialized in the transport of fresh fruits and vegetables going from Holland, Spain, Italy, Germany to Poland and export from Poland to the same regions. We do all range of logistics services, FTL transport, groupage transport, cooling warehousing and services dedicated for fruits and vegetables such as re-packing, sorting, labeling and generally preparing this kind of goods for deliveries to supermarkets in Poland. We provide 300 frigo trucks, three refrigerated warehouses in Poland dedicated to fruits and have a IFS Logistics certificate. As such, we're ready to take on any challenge from new clients!"
For more information:
Jakub Ostrowski
FreshQ Transport Sp. z o.o. Sp.K.
Tel: +48508944250
Email: jo@fresh-q.com
www.fresh-q.com