Peilin Chen - Logistics Operations Executive - Interfood Australia
Nothing feels better than completing a new challenge.
Hi Peilin, could you please introduce yourself?
My name is Peilin Chen, I am a Logistics Operations Executive at Interfood Australia. I grew up in Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan. After obtaining my accounting degree, my first job was at the Taipei City Government, working as an IT programmer. Back then, we were using the programming language “COBOL”, but I don’t think many people know this software nowadays.
In 1989, I got married and I moved to Sydney in Australia. Short after, me and my husband moved to Mount Gambier to run a family business of Live Southern Rock Lobster Export. I was there for 15 years, living in a country town with only 20.000 people, most of the time dealing with the fishermen. For better education and more opportunities for our son, we then moved to Melbourne, where we still live today.
What was your motivation to start a job at Interfood?
In Melbourne, after working for a few different export manufacturers, I decided to give myself a new challenge. That's how I joined Interfood 8 years ago. Working for a trading company in dairy commodities, that was a combination I never tried before. I decided that was a challenge big enough for me. It turned out to be the best decision I ever made.
What is your favorite thing about Interfood?
The people at Interfood are my favorite thing. I am working with a group of young and lovely people who are passionate about their jobs. I really enjoy every single moment we work together. Good teamwork improves effectiveness and efficiency and makes things run more smoothly. For us that’s really important and that’s how we act at Interfood Australia. We work, grow, learn and have fun together. We inspire each other and reward team results.
What is your best memory of your time at Interfood until today?
I have so many good memories about all that happened within 8 years. All the people I met during those years, even if they moved away from Interfood, they’re still part of my best memories.
To be more specific, another great memory would be the Bali team building event in 2017, where we had the chance to meet other APAC team members. I had a really good time there.
About your job at Interfood, what does your average working week look like?
Generally, we will start the day by checking emails to see if there is any urgency that happened overnight regarding other global offices or concerning our suppliers. This is followed by a team meeting to discuss the best possible solution to follow up on this urgency. No week is the same as there is always something exciting waiting for us. That’s working in logistics, it’s fast and dynamic and we continuously try to stay on top of things.
What do you like the most about your job?
I have been working for Interfood for 8 years already but still there is always something new happening. Nothing feels better than the satisfaction of completing a new challenge. We are constantly learning from the business and from each other.
Do you have any specific logistical challenges in your region?
When I started 8 years ago, we were only sending shipments out through our direct suppliers.
Over the last years we were able to offer innovative supply chain models to our customers and suppliers. We had to setup new warehousing structures across New Zealand and Australia and work closely together with our logistics service providers.
Late last year, another challenge arose for the Australia team. We had to insource some of these models ourselves. This also ensures more efficiency, we will have better control of our inventory and subsequently bigger profit margins too.
Are the weather conditions in Australia influencing logistics? For example, in case of a bushfire.
Yes sure, weather conditions or climate changes will always affect us as dairy cows have difficulties coping with extreme heat. This will affect the quantity of milk producing. In Australia we have to deal with weather conditions and climate changes quite a lot, which means we’re experienced enough to know how to deal with these situations. But of course, for the logistics team it can be a nightmare when we receive emails from the supplier that tell us our schedule must be delayed due to production shortage.
Finally, what would you say to potential new team members?
Welcome to the Interfood family. You will have plenty of opportunities to learn and grow your professional career – all we need from you is your passion for your job.
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