A day at Rungis: the door never locks
Not a long time ago, Sunday by day was the only quiet time at Rungis: the doors locked and the lights out.
But Rungis goes a step further in it’s service and now you can also find these hard workers processing the orders on a Sunday. Rungis never turns the lights out and you could take the locks of the doors.
Who ever walks through the enormous warehouse of Rungis, with separated areas to provide the optimum temperature for the there stored vegetables, and overlooks the almost endless range of products, would think this unique range would be the strongest argument for chefs to work with Rungis.
At Rungis we work 24/7 with over 100 passionate colleagues
But when we spend a morning at the office between the busy calling back office colleagues, we doubt again: perhaps the main argument is their service. Because for the chefs on the phone who insist to get white asparagus early February, they search high and low and also put the logistics right in motion.
Each non-delivered bunch of chocolate mint is called back: “Can i speak to someone from the kitchen? It wasn’t added to the order today, but tomorrow in the early morning we will receive it again. Shall we deliver it than?” This is the service, which seems naturally to them, that shows Rungis really understands what’s going on in the kitchens of her customers: “If someone orders a kilo of opposite-leaved saltwort, it’s for a reason. So we will do anything to deliver that kilo to them, that’s the standard over here.
Somewhere around 5 o’clock the activity inside the company seems to reach a climax when the routes are planned and the orders which where collected in the long nights, are divided over the Rungis vans and trucks. Large and smaller orders find their place in the refrigerated vans and the drivers are in a hurry to get started, so they’re before the first trafic jams. They have daily contact with the best kitchens of the Netherlands, and usually are welcomed with open arms: “I get offered a cup of coffee in a lot of restaurants, but i clearly have to keep going”, says one of them.
Meanwhile the order picking in the refrigerated warehouse continues, because later on at 7 or 9 o’clock the vans with new orders will leave.