New cold store for 'growth enabler' Leen Menken

Leen Menken's ambitions and the growing demand for cold storage and the 'last mile' no longer matched the company's capacity. For a new cold store, old building plans were taken from the archieves. And they turned out to be quite useful.

Increasingly, the sales department had to sell "no" over the past two years. "Our maximum storage capacity had been reached. While the demand for cold and freezer storage is increasing," says Lucas Roskam, general manager of Leen Menken Foodservice Logistics at the office on the outskirts of Zoetermeer. Refrigerated and freezer storage is one of the four service concepts the company offers.
Lucas: "We store pallets here at a temperature of +4 °C or -20 °C. We also offer value-added logistics, for example order picking, labeling, stickering, repackaging and order fulfillment. We also provide refrigerated logistics of large orders to food service and retail with trucks. And we have a fleet of about a hundred small buses that we use to bring chilled orders of one or a few boxes to customers; from a catering entrepreneur in Terneuzen to the end consumer in Groningen. We call this service the last mile, which is used by e-commerce customers from the meat and fish industry and a producer of meal boxes, for example."

Hans van den Hoorn (left) and Lucas Roskam

Changing wishes

This last mile in particular makes Leen Menken's offering unique in the refrigeration and freezer industry. In doing so, the company meets the changing wishes of its customers and consumers. Lucas: "They want faster access to a wider and high-quality product range. In recent years we have seen the need for the last mile increase enormously and have invested in it. By offering producers both storage, order picking and last-mile transport, we enable them to get their products to market quickly." Thanks to the investments, Leen Menken can help customers grow again, Lucas says: "We like to take on the role of 'growth enabler'. Customers with a limited volume start here, for example, with a single order that we handle the fulfillment and delivery for, but are - partly thanks to our services - able to grow."

Growth value

Leen Menken itself also has ambitions to grow in the coming years, particularly in value-added logistics. "Although of course we would like our customers to purchase our entire service package," says Lucas. After joining the company in late 2018, he developed a new strategy for the company. In it, new construction emerged as an important condition for growth. "A lot of square meters are needed for storage and for order picking. That's what was lacking here."

Challenging

And so old building plans were dusted off. Lucas: "In 2015, there were already plans to expand, but they were postponed at the time. The drawings still turned out to fit our plans pretty well. There was mainly a construction challenge. It had to be done quickly on a limited space: the 4,500-square-meter plot across from our existing site is constrained tightly on all sides, especially by the neighbors, one of whom has precise turntable equipment. As a result, pile driving was out of the question; we had to bolt into the ground to avoid upsetting the neighbor."

Crossing

So plenty of challenges, but fortunately, Leen Menken could count on the expertise of RBK Group, all-round consulting firm for the food industry. The company has long been involved in Leen Menken's new and remodeling projects and also made the construction plans in question in 2015. RBK therefore picked up the project again together with Leen Menken in mid-2021. After the drawings and specifications were tailored once more and the permits were received (again), the cold storage warehouse of more than 50,000 cubic meters was realized in 40 weeks last year. Storage is partially automated; order picking is done manually (because of the often small orders). Hans van den Hoorn, architect at RBK Food Projects: "We were able to create extra floor space for order picking by creating a substantial overpass above the incoming trucks, as well as by using the existing installation of neighboring company Arctic for the new refrigeration system. This saves energy costs, but also saves a machine room. By the way, the controls for the combined cold installation were created by our colleagues at RBK Food Automation."

Ambitious

Lucas: "RBK is the specialized company to carry out this kind of complex puzzle. Moreover, it is very pleasant working with them. The people are skilled, approachable and transparent. Once construction started, I personally had very little involvement with the new building. This shows the level of professionalism and our trust in RBK." Hans adds: "The trust is entirely mutual. Leen Menken is a very ambitious company that showed a very fine way of being involved during the project. Things are going to work out well here."

www.leenmenken.nl
www.rbk.nl

photos ©Roel Dijkstra