Company Profile
How does it work if your entire family makes a living fishing? Then you also get on board to keep the company going. "But if they had not pushed me in that direction, I would not have become a fisherman," says Koorn (53) now from the office on the first floor of Unishore Workwear on the Handelsweg in Den Helder. His company.
The warehouse is full of overalls, safety shoes, helmets, glasses, pants, sweaters. Many in stock and can quickly be provided with a company logo. The products are transported to Den Helder via Dutch suppliers and provided with a printed or embroidered logo.
That is the present, but after secondary school Koorn first signed on to the HD32, with father and brothers. "At the beginning of this century, in 2001, I didn't feel like continuing any longer. We were faced with the quotations and other issues that did not make work easier.'' It was decided to sell the fishing boat. Koorn had always wanted to do something commercial and was then given the opportunity to do so. During the previous years he had tried various economic courses and - although he did not complete them - he had still learned something from it.
After selling the fishing boat, he worked in the field at an oil company, set up Intrapost in Alkmaar with a colleague and worked at Princess Works in Den Helder, a company that sells work clothing. "That's how I came into contact with Jaap Posthumus, the boss of Unishore, more often. I already knew him from my fishing days.'' Unishore is a technical trading company, also in Den Helder, and supplies items mainly for fishing and offshore.
Due to the growing demand from customers for clothing and personal protective equipment, a separate company for this purpose, Unishore Workwear, was founded in 1985. Posthumus wanted to stop doing that at the age of 65 and that's when Koorn came into the picture. “I had now discovered that working for a boss was actually not for me. On board it wasn't that bad: you are either the skipper or you are on deck. But in normal business life it was different. And so I became owner in 2007. I may not have come from the clothing industry, but I did have a feeling for the offshore industry. That's where most of the customers were."
Online store
A new home was quickly found and Koorn immediately started an online shop. “I knew that that was the future. We now generate 40 percent of our turnover from orders placed via or in response to visits to the website. I myself went into field service to recruit customers. I can chat nicely, so I didn't find that a problem.'' And so the customer base grew and the number of sectors was expanded. Postal companies, municipalities, sheltered workshops and the theater are now also part of the customer base.
The start-up company was not much affected by the crisis.
"The offshore was not affected by this in 2007, because oil prices were high. That crisis came in 2013, when the rest started to recover a bit. The business premises were expanded with an extra floor and the workforce grew in those eleven years from two to the current ten, including his wife Petra, who is in charge of the embroidery department. “We started at home, but when a second embroidery machine had to be installed, we quickly bought a building. There are now four embroidery machines, with which logos are applied to clothing. Petra Koorn explains: "We receive the original logos and the corresponding color numbers from the companies. We translate this into an embroidery card via a computer program. This is fed into the machines. We have molds for the correct position on the clothing, which we fix in the clothing. Reference points are often stitching seams. Or else use the centimeter!''
Half of Unishore Workwear customers choose embroidery. Gerhard Koorn: "It gives a somewhat richer appearance." Another option that the company offers customers is to personalize the clothing. Koorn walks into the warehouse to a pile of clothing from Business Post. Red with a yellow trim. "This polo, for example, is standard red, but the piping is specially applied for Business mail. And this also applies to the color scheme of body warmers and rain gear.”
Logo on clothing gives appearance
Casual
Most clothing leaves the company with a logo. “It has become more of a business. And employees get used to it. The clothing is increasingly developing into casual clothing, so it is quite casual and trendy. In the showroom we have various clothing items, such as poloshirts, that you can also wear at home. That is why we also sell to private individuals. And sometimes companies give the employee a jacket as a gift with overalls. With logo."
There has been enormous development in the past ten years when it comes to work shoes. "We used to have three models, but now we have multiples of that. For all kinds of companies. Because of all those online orders, you have many more people working in warehouses who need safety shoes there. They want a smooth type of shoe.'' Because of the possibility of trying on clothes or shoes in the showroom, the customer base is largely located in the north of North Holland. “Then you can have your people come here again for shoes. From Dordrecht that becomes a bit more difficult."
Because of the sales market, Koorn hopes to grow to a second location in the Alkmaar region in the next ten years and to double the workforce. The webshop attracts people from all over the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. "They are still a bit behind the Netherlands when it comes to e-commerce." Due to the substantial income from e-commerce, a lot of attention is paid to social media. "That's not my thing, but luckily Petra does that with a young employee. It takes a lot of time to keep track of all that, but you can't do without it anymore."
So far we have still managed to find enough staff, but it is not getting any easier. Especially in the field of HBO students, the supply is thin in Den Helder, says Koorn. And expand the business with family? “The children are not eager. They have different dreams for the future. But they are always welcome in the company. ''
Safety
Because personal protection items such as helmets and goggles are also included in the range, Koorn has chosen leading brands that keep up with developments in that area themselves. "Like Helly Hansen.
If new requirements arise, they adapt the clothing themselves. You don't actually have to keep track of that yourself."
When we are given a tour of the facility, we see that not a single staff member is wearing company clothing. Isn't that strange? Koorn laughs: “I actually don't like it that much. But that can sometimes be difficult. Our driver, who delivers orders in the afternoon, does wear protective work clothing. Once when I took a ride to an offshore company, I was turned away at the gate because I wasn't wearing the right clothes and shoes, ha ha."
Source: Durk Geertsma, Helderse Courant