Together, we make the difference
At Luiten Food – Thomas Foods Europe, anything we can do ourselves, we actually do ourselves. We have our own production area where we portion the meat. Then we have a labelling department where the products get labelled, so that they are ready for our customers. Looking at logistics, our in-house expedition is where trucks are loaded and unloaded. Incoming products are scanned into our CSB system, entering them into the inventory and making them fully traceable. Each location in the warehouse has a unique number, making it easy to find the products. To provide our customers with as much convenience as possible, we maintain our own fleet of vehicles. This gives us the flexibility to respond to our customers’ needs. On top of that, we cooperate with regular partners for international transport. We arrange all the necessary documents for international import and export, to ensure that the shipping process runs as seamlessly as possible.
The production department is home to production butchers with a passion for quality meat! From portioning with the Marelec machine to deskinning our beef, lamb, venison and other meats, and taking care of orders for our catering customers and food professionals, our production department can do it all.
In the labelling department, we label packaged meat products. Every day, we start up a production line, meeting all the daily goals at the end of the day. Besides ensuring production output, everyone bears the important responsibility to ensure product quality, e.g. best-before checks, food safety and hygiene.
Our expedition department deals with loading and unloading trucks and containers. Early every morning, we process the fresh products which arrive from Paris every day. Our aim is to send the products to our customers within 3 hours. This allows our customers to enjoy the fresh poultry the same day. The rest of the day we spend picking export orders and unloading containers coming in from all over the world. All our incoming and outgoing goods are checked for temperature and quality. The goods are then entered into our in-house Enterprise Resource Planning system, the CSB system. The CSB system allows us to track every box throughout the company. Our processes are all supported by: scanners, pump trucks, scooters, stackers, fork-lift trucks and reach trucks. Furthermore, we occasionally use a conveyor belt when unloading containers, to make the work as easy as possible for all employees.
Our (partially) automated warehouse has a total capacity of over 5,500 pallet locations. Our pallet locations comprise several rooms, allowing us to control the temperatures at each location. The various areas are regulated to be between -20 and 0 degrees Celsius. This allows us to store all goods at the right temperature.
Our entire warehouse is cleverly organised. Each location in our warehouse has a unique number and description. Every pallet and even box has a unique number in our Warehouse Management System. This allows us to locate all pallets or boxes at any time. This way, our order pickers can see exactly where the pallet and boxes of a specific customer’s order can be found. Order picking happens with a hand-held scanner, which tells our employees all the information they need.
Luiten Food – Thomas Foods Europe has its own logistics department. We deliver orders to our customers every day. Because we have our own fleet of vehicles, we are very flexible towards our customers. Our logistical efficiency enables us to deliver in the Netherlands and Belgium within 24 hours, if in stock. Our vehicles are connected to our tracking and registration system. This allows us to constantly give you an up-to-date overview of the location of our trucks. This also applies to the larger distances we cover on a weekly basis.
Luiten Food – Thomas Foods Europe works with regular partners for international transport. We have been working together with these partners for a long time, to be able to supply our customers properly.
Luiten Food – Thomas Foods Europe imports and exports meat from a number of countries. Our team therefore consists of several employees who oversee the import and export of our products on a daily basis.
Thanks to years of experience, we have established solid agreements with our regular suppliers to ensure that documents of incoming containers can be checked upfront. This allows us to ensure that customs clearance by our Customs clearance agent goes smoothly and that the meat can arrive at our premises on schedule.
We also arrange the export of both transit and cleared goods to non-European countries. We ensure that all the necessary documents are prepared. We also ensure that the transport is arranged according to the customer’s wishes. Should the customer require different documents, we will always look into whether we can offer a suitable solution.
Luiten Food – Thomas Foods Europe gives high priority to the traceability of our products. Looking at current trends in the Netherlands and its surroundings, transparency about the origin of products is becoming increasingly important. We currently ensure that all our products can be traced at least 1 step back in the chain. In most cases, it is possible to fully trace the product back to its origin. This is a trend within our industry that many other organisations are currently following as well.
Our extensive cooperation with the Australian company Thomas Foods International further enhances our oversight on the supply chain. The shared vision of Luiten Food – Thomas Foods Europe and Thomas Foods International ensures that food safety, employee welfare and animal welfare can be controlled within most of the supply chain. This allows us to assure customers of an ethical and high-quality product.
