Waste strictly prohibited. How to become the best importer of Asian foods?

In a modest little house in Prague’s Libuš district resides Veggie Asian Food, the largest European importer of food, fruit, and spices from Southeast Asia. Over the course of its existence, the company has achieved incredible feats. They negotiated with the Thai government to secure priority access to products from local farmers. They established their own logistics center at Bangkok Airport. They became the most important Central European partner of the renowned airline Emirates, regularly taking up a large share of its cargo space. They even obtained their own customs facilities at Prague’s Ruzyně Airport. Within just a few hours of arrival, they are able to deliver fresh produce from distant lands not only to customers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but also in Germany, the Netherlands, and France.

But above all, handling hundreds of small operational tasks every single day. Placing orders in the middle of the night, managing cargo space capacity, monitoring freshness and flawless quality of all foods, improving the technology of refrigerated transport boxes. You might wonder how many people such a company must employ. In reality, it’s only twenty-eight - efficiency is ensured by the system, but above all by their extreme diligence.

The company is run by a petite woman - smiling yet assertive - Hoang Yen Le. Within the company, everyone calls her simply Jenka. She has lived in Prague since the eighth grade, which is why she speaks perfect Czech. And she says: “We’re in a business where mistakes are not forgiven. If we deliver bad food even once, not only will that customer never buy from us again, but our reputation could be damaged. That’s why sometimes we even go below cost just to keep our word. Today, this approach is paying off, because for the past two years we’ve been number one on the market and the only ones who can always deliver everything we promise,” she explains, revealing the behind-the-scenes of a demanding market where time is measured in minutes. For Veggie Asian Food to succeed, everyone in the company must be exceptionally strict with themselves. Tardiness or unprofessionalism is never tolerated.

From Makro to K2

Since last year, the company has also been using parts of the K2 enterprise system, which helps them with logistics, barcode scanning, price tag labeling in stores, and monitoring the efficiency of individual parts of operations. Behind this cooperation stands not only the quality of the solution, but also the personal relationship between Jakub Míša, project manager at K2 and its partner Sluno, and Kien Bui, the person responsible at Veggie Asian Food for the dry food division. Their friendship goes back to the days when they worked together at the Makro retail. chain.

“But that by no means implies that Kien is any less strict with us. Quite the opposite. Because he is exceptionally technically skilled and hardworking, he can code or adjust many things himself. He also has very clear ideas about what changes we should make in the system,” smiles Jakub Míša. The fact that the cooperation is working very well so far is also shown by Veggie’s current plans to expand the system to cover fresh fruit and, at the same time, to localize it into Thai, Vietnamese, and other languages.

“Of course, this is a challenge for all of us. On the other hand, it’s also a reference that gives us a great opportunity to advance ourselves as well. When you see how everyone at Veggie Asian Food is constantly working and thinking about how to move their own business forward, you want to be there as a partner. It’s an exciting environment where things change from hour to hour—and at the same time a masterclass in flexibility for all corporate processes in global competition,” concludes Jakub Míša.