In September, LC Packaging opened its new, sustainable, evolving and warehouse head office at Logistiekpark A12 in Waddinxveen. The grand opening wasn’t due to the year of Corona, but AGF.nl has already caught a glimpse of the new building for the family business that has been active in the packaging industry for generations.
Bowdoin van Frasen and Nick Janssen
The great-grandfather of CEO Lucas Lammers started the company in 1923, and its sole activities were the purchase, refurbishment and distribution of (used) jute bags. The company now specializes in packaging plastic bags (jumbo bags), mesh bags, cardboard, paper, jute and WPP for the fruit, vegetable and industrial sector.
12500 square meters warehouse and 3000 square meters office
The new building is 16 meters high and has a total area of 12,500 square meters of warehouse and 3,000 square meters of office space. The warehouse capacity in the first phase is 29,000 fully loaded pallets with an additional hall for printing jute and plastic bags. In the second phase, 5,000 square meters of warehouse will be added. Sustainability and luxury have been keywords in the construction industry, according to Nick Janssen (Director of Europe). For example, there are 3,032 solar panels on the roof, enough to power 386 homes for a year, and the rainwater is collected and used by farmers in the area.
“With the outstanding BREEAM degree, we are one of the most sustainable buildings in the Netherlands, but above all we want it to be an enjoyable place to meet. By working together, you foster cooperation between different departments, within and outside the Netherlands. Purchasing, sales, marketing and sustainability. Due to current Corona standards. , Things are no different now, but we believe in coming together in the office. We do everything we can to ensure colleagues work together in the most enjoyable way. A great workplace that is fully equipped and wants to be a center of knowledge for each other and our clients. Transparency is of the utmost importance here, for each of our suppliers. We are excited to be included in the process and we also believe that this is the future. “
Fitness Center
So the new building is fully equipped with a real hall and gymnasium where colleagues can exercise under the supervision of a personal trainer, a spacious canteen where fresh lunch is served for several days, established offices, consulting rooms and spacious offices with a video phone. Around 100 people work in the Waddinxveen head office. Downstairs, fifty fellows from LC Netherlands work, which is good for about 50 million of a total of 200 million turnover, on the top floor, Fellows of LC International, the one-stop organization that has an overview of the entire supply chain of LC. The group maintains contact with all subsidiaries of LC Packaging in Africa, Asia and Europe.
Anyone who thinks they will stop there is wrong, because LC Packaging has its own offices in Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Hungary, Romania, England, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, South and West Africa. “These are not sales offices with two people, but all decent offices have their own storage units. Thanks to our SAP system, we have a real-time view of inventory and see all purchase and sales orders for the entire group,” says Boudewijn van Fraassen, Agricultural Packaging Manager.
With offices, production facilities and warehouses in 16 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia with more than 1,700 employees, we are always close and there is always a site close by! Thanks to our 70,000 square meter storage capacity and comprehensive distribution network, we can guarantee our deliveries, even during peak periods Seasonality and for short-term deliveries, “Boudewijn continues. With three offices in the UK and two in Ireland, Brexit did not cause major problems for the packaging supplier.
Huge stock and store
LC Packaging prefers to grow in depth rather than width. “We like to keep focus. We are already active in a large number of sectors and this requires massive stockpiling and storage. For example, we sometimes have twice the overall turnover in tire baling. But suddenly the onion sorter has to be the demand from Central America or Asia, we can Expect it. So we seek to achieve our growth mainly in the current markets. We find it important to be one of the top 3 players anyway, and we prefer to be the market leader in the markets in which we operate than we do little. ”
Scarcity of raw materials
The network of international offices came just in time for Corona last year. “The demand for our packaging rose rapidly, but in supply, we, like everyone else, faced huge challenges. We traveled madly between the different branches to satisfy our customers’ demand. It was very exciting to do so, but it worked, in part because we keep a high inventory that is irresponsible. Almost to our customers, “says Nick Jansen. “At the same time, shortages are challenges. For example, the price of polypropylene (PP) pellets has increased by 40% in one month. I haven’t tested that yet in the 25 years that I have been working at LC Packaging. The jute and paper business is alarming, So you have to talk to your clients about existing contracts, because the customer needs to get their package anyway. “
“What helps with this is that we often operate on the basis of long-term partnerships. Ten years ago we were more active on a daily trade basis. Now we can guarantee more long-term products for our partners. Thanks Boudewijn agrees to combine our own factories and semi-in-house production with Partners with whom we sometimes work for thirty years, we can guarantee quality and availability. “
He does not see producers from the Far East who try themselves to set foot in Europe as competitors. “It often sounds fun, but experience shows that these companies will never last in the long term. We believe that quality is much more than just the strength of our packaging. It’s about the whole picture. If you don’t have more offer. From your packaging, you miss the right. in the existence “.
With jute packaging, LC Packaging already has a written example of compostable packaging at home, according to Nick. The company is not focusing on smaller consumer jute packaging, which is on the rise, especially elsewhere in Europe, because it wants to maintain its focus on customers in the food, agricultural and industrial sectors.
Sustainability is the packaging company’s top priority. “For example, we have an alliance with Veolia to reduce waste from flexible packaging around the world. Recycled polypropylene (rPP) is also a hot ingredient. This is already being tested by British customers. We are working hard on this and it is Something else entirely challenging to achieve 30% rPP in a package of 100g, for example, but we are happy to meet this challenge, ”Nick concludes.
for more information:
www.lcpackaging.nl
www.lcpackaging.com
