What exact­ly is your role at Bianchi?

I am the Head of Cold Storage. I mana­ge all dis­patch ope­ra­ti­ons and prepa­re orders with my team. I have a team of 20 peo­p­le working in three shifts. 

What does a typi­cal day look like?

We start pro­ces­sing orders that came in over­night at four in the morning.

How do they come in? 

Via fax, web­shop, email, depen­ding on the customer.

And then?

Then it goes through our system. We retrie­ve the orders, and they are pro­ces­sed at the back. It’s a rather lar­ge area, so it’s important that pro­ces­ses are effi­ci­ent. We have spe­cia­lists for each pro­duct group, which also speeds up processing. 

How lar­ge is the cold sto­rage facility?

We have appro­xi­m­ate­ly 2,500 pal­let spaces here. Plus ano­ther 4,000 pal­let spaces extern­al­ly. We also have spe­cial are­as, such as „sushi cells“… 

„Sushi cells“?

Yes, for sushi tuna, whe­re the rooms are coo­led down to minus 60 degrees Celsius.

Why?

Every fish has bac­te­ria, which are eli­mi­na­ted at such low temperatures.

How many tons are hand­led here per day?

It’s about 30 tons per day…

…tha­t’s still a lot…

…yes, and the­re are many items in small units. We all work very con­cen­tra­ted here to ensu­re as few errors as pos­si­ble occur during order picking. 

Does that hap­pen often? I mean, orders come in through four dif­fe­rent chan­nels, many orders are for small quantities… 

…not often, but it does hap­pen, tha­t’s clear.

And then?

If an order was not deli­ver­ed cor­rect­ly, we pick it up on the same day and deli­ver the cor­rect order. In indi­vi­du­al cases, this is of cour­se not good for Bianchi, but as I said: the rate of incor­rect deli­veries is very small com­pared to the total volume. 

How long have you been with Bianchi?

I’ve been here sin­ce 1999, so over 18 years. Before that, I was at FrigoSwiss and mana­ged their warehou­se. All in all, I have been working in cold sto­rage manage­ment for about 28 years now. 

28 years of freezing.

You get used to it. I’m also not someone who likes it too hot. 

18 years at Bianchi, what do you feel about it?

Bianchi is like a big fami­ly. Something is always hap­pe­ning, ever­ything is always in moti­on, we are con­stant­ly gro­wing, every step is a chall­enge, so it never gets boring. 

And what do you do when you’­re not working?

Then I’m at home with my fami­ly, my hor­ses, dogs, and ducks.

You ride?

Not any­mo­re. But we’­ve had the hor­ses for over 20 years. They deser­ve a nice retirement.