Stefan Haderer delivers fresh fruit and veg
Report
Trust, flexibility and a Mercedes-Benz Atego – Stefan Haderer supplies customers in Upper and Lower Austria with fresh fruit and veg.
Freshly-dug asparagus is smooth and moist where it is cut. The shoots shouldn't break too easily and they should squeak when rubbed against one another. Everything’s fine so far. The only problem is that the warm and dry month of April meant the vegetable was able to grow well, but the poor weather at the beginning of May hit the “white gold” season hard. How can you check the cut area of a shoot if there are no shoots? “Good question!” says Markus Grabmayr with a smile. The fruit and veg wholesaler from Eferding in Upper Austria explains that when the weather and the temperatures don’t allow fruit and veg to ripen, this has an effect on the produce which he can sell.
Selling veg is his daily bread.
“We live from our daily business and can only sell produce which grows in the fields,” he says. When the worst comes to the worst, he of course tries to find alternative suppliers and providers – but will he find any asparagus? “Hopefully tomorrow morning.”
And when Markus Grabmayr says “morning”, he really means it – his business is working at full steam from very early in the day. At 2:00 a.m. already, 15 employees of the family-run business set off while the rest of the country is fast asleep. They check the last-minute orders from the night, pick the fruit and veg orders from the stores, and put the freshly delivered produce on the shelves of the coldrooms.
Deliveries to Upper and Lower Austria.
Some of the 25 farming contractors that supply the company deliver radishes, tomatoes, salads, strawberries and a range of other regional vegetables with their tractors. Up front at the loading bay, an employee has prepared a box of carrots for a customer in the Mühlviertel area, while another is transporting a pallet full of apples with an electric pump truck from one coldroom to the next. There's plenty of hustle and bustle. And it’s hardly surprising: on a daily basis, several tonnes of foodstuffs are processed here and then transported by the company’s own fleet to more than 500 hotels and restaurants, schools and hospitals, spa resorts, retirement homes and other companies in Upper and Lower Austria.
The Atego is the ideal vehicle for the job.
The company’s boss, Markus Grabmayr, has only Mercedes-Benz vehicles in his fleet. “The Atego has proven itself to be great for short-radius distribution and short journeys like ours. The vehicle has the right size for delivering fruit and veg to between 20 and 30 customers, whilst still being able to drive through tight alleyways,” he says. From his own experience, he knows that: “No other brand is as reliable as Mercedes.” And if ever there is a problem, the nearby Mercedes workshop quickly and reliably sorts everything out. “The service is truly amazing,” comes the praise from Markus Grabmayr.
The driver: Stefan Haderer.
Among those people ensuring that the supply of fruit and veg never stops is Stefan Haderer. The truck driver is currently driving his Mercedes-Benz Atego 1224 to the deliveries entrance of the Thalinger Hof hotel in Kronstorf near Enns (Upper Austria). He engages reverse gear, looks in the side mirrors, before then turning to the image on the screen from the reversing camera and slowly reverses. A few metres ahead of the entrance, the 53-year-old stops and opens the loading ramp of his truck. Although it’s only 10:30 in the morning, Stefan Haderer’s working day is almost drawing to a close. Today, he’s already delivered to more than a dozen customers. The load for Thalinger Hof included crates of fruit, salad and veg.
“No other brand is as reliable as Mercedes.”
– Stefan Haderer
Where customers become friends of the family.
Stefan loads each crate onto a trolley. Hearing the noise, the chef of the hotel’s restaurant looks around the door and starts to smile. “Ah, it’s you! How’s it going?” A familiar face.
“It’s like that pretty much everywhere I deliver to,” says Stefan. But even on his regular routes, it’s not necessarily always the same customers each time. “On the whole, though, I do tend to go to the same customers from time to time.” But Stefan doesn’t get bored – quite the opposite in fact. “Over the years, real friendships have developed,” he says.
Trust, flexibility and friendliness.
Plus, it’s also an advantage that Stefan knows the processes and specific characteristics of the places he delivers to. “I’ve even got a key to let myself in at many of our customers – that way I can deliver their produce before they even start working.” In Stefan’s job, trust is really important. As is flexibility: from time to time, the planned route might have to be changed at short notice, for example. Another important aspect of the job is friendliness: “For me, it’s all about the traditional approach of treating others how you wish to be treated.”
Shelf-to-shelf service.
The next delivery is for a rehabilitation clinic in Enns. “At some of our customers, like here, I even put all of the produce into their shelving,” says Stefan as he lifts a crate of pears into place. “I know how the chef likes to have his products positioned, where he wants his carrots and where the peppers need storing. In those cases, I may as well put the crates directly onto the shelves, instead of simply stacking them here one on top of the other.” And the customer is definitely likes that.
Finally sourced some asparagus.
Stefan Haderer’s boss Markus Grabmayr also has reason to be pleased. He’s finally now found an asparagus supplier. After agreeing the final terms on the phone, he hangs up with a smile: “Job done! He can deliver during the night.” But what does that mean for Stefan Haderer? He will surely have fresh asparagus on-board and a few customers might even carry out the cut check and rub the shoots against one another. But will they squeak? “Of course they will,” says Markus Grabmayr. “We only deliver absolutely fresh produce.”
Photos: Sebastian Freiler
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