A visit to the My Father & Tatuaje Warehouse
A visit to the My Father & Tatuaje Warehouse. No, not the warehouse at the factory in Nicaragua. And also not the warehouse in Miami from where American retailers get their orders. But the warehouse in The Netherlands from where the international orders are dispatched.
J. Van Horssen, the Dutch distributor for My Father & Tatuaje is the warehousing partner. Previously they did the same for Oliva Cigars until J. Cortes bought Oliva and merged the warehouse with their in-house warehouse for the J. Cortes brands. J. van Horssen BV is the umbrella under which Longfiller Company, Cigaragua, and the Van Dalen Cigars store fall.
Big space
The writer of this article has a working history with J. Van Horssen. The European Oliva warehouse was a cramped space with not a lot of room to work. Doing the international orders was always a hassle. Working in a cramped space with high humidity is never fun. So I was really surprised to see the space for the My Father & Tatuaje Warehouse.
Since J. Van Horssen sold the dry-cured short filler division of the company, a large part of the big warehouse was empty. So a big part of that warehouse is now dedicated to My Father & Tatuaje. New walls have been built to create a huge walk-in humidor. Part of the space has shelves where boxes of products are stacked. Another part of the warehouse is used for master cases. And the products are positioned in the way they are positioned on the order form. That makes picking the orders efficient.
On top of that, Van Horssen had a huge packing table installed, including a huge scale to make the packing and shipping as efficient as possible. It is a smooth-running operation. Which is fitting, as the My Father Cigars SA factory in Esteli, Nicaragua has the same organic, efficient flow of people and product as well. From all the factories I have seen, that factory has the best design for efficiency.
Why a European warehouse?
You might think that adding a European warehouse is adding cost. But it’s actually cheaper and more efficient for all parties involved. For the manufacturer, and for the local importers and distributors. The manufacturer saves a lot in warehouse space and labor in Nicaragua. Instead of handling relatively small orders for 40 or 50 countries, they now pack a 40ft container a couple of times a year and ship that out to one address.
As for distributors in Europe, it is much cheaper due to savings on the shipping cost. In the cigar industry, all orders are FOB Origin. So it means that the buyer is responsible for the shipping cost. And shipping with airfreight from Nicaragua to for example Germany is way more expensive than shipping from The Netherlands by road to Germany. And shipping to the warehouse in The Netherlands in a container by sea is also much cheaper than by air. The only party losing in this scenario is the air freight agents.
Other advantages
Having worked for a cigar importer and distributor, I know firsthand that it often happens that one product is running out. But due to shipping costs, it is not feasible to order just 40 boxes of one product. That would simply be too expensive. And if other products of that same manufacturer are still in stock, there is no other option than to wait. If there is a warehouse in Europe, things change. Ordering smaller orders suddenly isn’t too expensive. It means that distributors never have to run out of products ever again, which is good for tobacconists and cigar enthusiasts.
The possibility of importers being able to do smaller orders also influences the cash-flow of these importers. And that helps tobacconists and cigar enthusiasts as well. It frees up funds for a bigger variety of cigars in the portfolio of both the distributor and the tobacconist.
All in all, I was impressed with the set-up of the My Father & Tatuaje warehouse. I think it will help to grow the presence of both brands outside the United States. It is time for more major cigar brands to look into a big international warehouse somewhere in Europe.
