Simon-Jan Terpstra
Meetings, meetings, meetings. If there is one thing that people here are really good at, then is it at having meetings. I can fill my whole week here with talking. We try to skip all the unnecessary meetings – or else we will never be able to finish all of the paper trail for the packaging house.
We developed new sorting process for the exporters. The goal of this is to have a flow of packing instead of peaks in the process. When I saw the tables finished it felt like the Dutch won the world cup with soccer. I can be really happy with every little step of progress we make! We use “Who pays the Champaign” a lot!
We had endless problems to get started, but – finally – everything seems to be ready for export this week. It’s really exciting. Unfortunately our stock of problems is not entirely run out yet. The cooled container for transport that we will use was not paid for yet by the previous customer. And it’s still filled with frozen meat. That mean that this week again we have not been able to start exporting our Mali mangoes. It was really hard to accept this. After more six weeks I really had the hope to get started with exporting.
The chance to export in my last week in Mali is around 75%. My fingers are crossed! Koot will stay in Mali to support the exporters. I have to return to my supermarket to take my responsibilities as the manager. Currently my two assistants are running the store and it’s time to go back.
For eight weeks starting in April 2007 Albert Heijn supermarket manager Simon-Jan Terpstra is working to help the management of a mango packaging factory in Bamako as part of a pilot project for Albert Heijn, which, if the results after favorable will continue in 2008.
This is the second time mangos from Mali will be exported to the Netherlands for Albert Heijn. Last year it was one container with 20,000 tons of mangoes. This year the plan is to export eight containers.
Simon-Jan started working for Ahold in 2005 as an Ahold management trainee. In his first year he was project manager in the Albert Heijn Supply Chain and the, in his second year, an assistant supermarket manager for Albert Heijn. Since November 2006 he has been a supermarket manager.
Next to his work for Albert Heijn, Simon-Jan volunteers for an organization called World Servants, which carries out building projects with hundreds of volunteers in several developing countries, helping to construct facilities such as schools, health clinics or homes with people from the local community.