At 6:30 a.m., the workshop on Chaussée de Dieleghem in Jette slowly awakens. The machines start up, the first scents of almond fill the air. Flori is already there. For more than twenty years, this versatile worker has been a figure at Silly.
Her ID card says Florica. But here, everyone calls her Flori. At 52, she knows the workshop almost by heart. Cleaning, production, weighing, packaging, palletising: she moves from one task to another with quiet ease. “I like doing a bit of everything,” she says. “Over time, I've learned almost every job.”
Yet nothing predestined her for making brésilienne and marzipan. When she arrived in Belgium, she first took cleaning jobs, then worked for a while in catering. It was through an acquaintance that she heard about Silly, which was then looking for someone to maintain its premises.
“At first, I came to do the cleaning,” she recalls. But things changed quickly. Her colleagues showed her the machines, the techniques, the different steps. “Little by little, they taught me the rest of the trade.”
A second family
Twenty-two years later, Flori is still here. Why has she stayed so long? She smiles: “People like coming to work here. The bosses are kind, and so are the colleagues. We respect each other. It's a truly caring place.”
One word comes up often: family. “My family is in Romania,” she explains. “Here in Belgium, I have my husband and my son, but at work I've found a second family.” A feeling forged over the years, sometimes in difficult moments — such as when her father passed away, when the company told her to take all the time she needed. “I don't think many companies would do that.”
Pride in the craft
Today, Flori has mastered the manufacturing process. She describes the journey of the almonds: washed, ground, turned into paste before reaching the workbenches. Even though machines play a major role, the hand remains essential. “In the end, we still do a lot by hand: weighing, packing, checking.”
This expertise is also a source of pride. She sometimes gives marzipan to her loved ones. “Every time, they tell me it's the best they've ever tasted. It makes me proud, because I know the work it takes.”
The job gave her far more than skills. When she arrived, Flori lacked confidence. “I was afraid of making mistakes, afraid of touching the machines.” Her colleagues encouraged her. “They told me it was okay to make mistakes, that's how you learn. It's here that I learned to believe in myself.”
Despite the years, her energy remains intact. “The hardest part isn't working,” she says with a laugh. “It's staying home on the weekend.” After more than two decades, she can't imagine working anywhere else: “I'd like to stay here until I retire.” And in every kilo of marzipan and brésilienne that leaves the workshop, there is a little of that loyalty.