“No day goes to plan. A container gets stuck, a transport is delayed, something changes on the customer’s side. You can’t prevent that. What you can do is keep deciding what matters most right now.”

I didn’t start out in logistics. I worked in a secretariat, then in damage management, and after that spent more than eight years in order processing at a technical company. Looking back, that was good schooling. Order processing teaches you how much depends on getting the details right, and how quickly one small mistake travels down the line.

About four and a half years ago I joined Royal Ingredients and made the move into logistics. I started with our warehouses in the United States, and over time my scope grew. Today I look after logistics for parts of America, Latin America and Canada.

People sometimes think logistics is simply getting something from one place to another. In reality, it’s everything that happens in between. The pre-carriage to the port. The sea freight. The on-carriage to a warehouse or straight to a customer. And around all of that, a constant stream of communication with suppliers, with customers, with colleagues in other departments.

Royal Ingredients is a supplier in food ingredients. Think of potato starch, gluten and dextrose. Our customers range from bakeries to, perhaps surprisingly, the paper industry. We have warehouses in the Netherlands and in America, and a lot of our deliveries run through them.

Because of the time difference, my days are very email-driven, and the picture keeps shifting as the day goes on.

What I appreciate is the freedom I get in that. How I plan my work and solve problems is largely up to me. Where it touches the customer, I work closely with logistics management and the commercial team, because those decisions belong together. That combination of freedom and responsibility is something I’ve really grown into.

I won’t pretend it’s always calm. Our logistics team is around fifteen people and growing, and there have been periods where there was simply more work than there were hands. New colleagues are joining and being onboarded, and that’s already making a difference.

If I had to describe the culture: flat, honest and fun. There isn’t much hierarchy. Management just walks over, has a chat, and is easy to approach. Honesty, decency and respect aren’t values on a wall here you notice them in how people treat each other.

We’re part of Cefetra Group, but day to day our logistics team runs pretty much independently. We don’t have much to do with other departments or logistics teams in the wider group, which keeps our own lines short and direct.

At the same time, Royal Ingredients is growing fast and becoming more professional. Quarterly a year we get a presentation on our plans and results. That openness does something. You know where Royal Ingredients stands and where it’s heading, and that builds trust. You feel part of it.

And then there are the small things. A gift and flowers on your birthday. Cake every month. Seasonal treats. Drinks together on Friday afternoon. Small gestures, maybe. But they say a lot about whether people feel seen.

I’m proud to work for a company that started small and has grown into a business that operates worldwide. And every now and then I recognise a product in the shops and think: our ingredients are in there. That never really gets old.

Even after four and a half years, I’m still learning, new countries, new documents, new ways things need to be arranged. That keeps the work interesting.

My biggest challenge for the coming year is the same one I’ve learned to take seriously: guarding my own boundaries. The order book is unpredictable, and in logistics you can never plan too far ahead. But that’s exactly why it matters. In a job where so many changes every day, my own limits are one of the few things I get to decide myself.

The containers will keep moving either way. I’ve learned to set my own pace.