Three companies at the City Terminal on Rotterdam Heijplaat have joined forces to supply the Food Bank with fresh fruit and vegetables, Port of Rotterdam said in its release.
The firms OGL, Fruitservice and the logistics service provider Kloosterboer all work from Cool Port, the Netherlands’ largest cold store for cooled and refrigerated produce. Here, fruit and vegetables that have been shipped in containers to Rotterdam from all over the world are unloaded and pre-processed before ending up on the shelves of supermarkets in Western Europe. In some cases, the produce is rejected for further processing – because unit weights deviate from contract specifications, for example. This fruit & veg is presently being sent on to the Food Bank.
“The Food Bank is very pleased with the support offered by Cool Port. OGL, Fruitservice and Kloosterboer are helping people living below the poverty line. In many cases, we’re talking about farm-fresh fruit & veg. This is precisely the food category that we are often in sore need of at the Food Bank,” says Jeroen van Meel of the Dordrecht Food Bank.