"Juices also more popular in cafés"

Jan Hellemans of De Drie Wilgen is phoned by a new customer every week. New shops, cafés and restaurants show interest in his company's fruit juices and contact the Belgian juice producer. Jan has been active in organic fruit juice all his life. "Beer used to do well in the cafés, now juices are as popular."

Jan Hellemans of De Drie Wilgen shows two of his juices, on the left apple-cherry juice, and on the right apple-raspberry juice.

“Ten years ago I would rarely get a call from a new customer," says Jan. "Over five years consumers have started looking more for healthy products and the organic fruit juices are profiting from that. Now I get a number of calls from new customers every week," he laughs. The main cause of this is the general increase in interest in health and healthy food.

Not from concentrate

De Drie Wilgen gets around a third of their turnover from catering. The company supplies straight to catering in Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent, among others. The company also supplies to wholesalers and natural food stores. "Catering still serves a lot of juice from concentrate, but we can see that there's more interest in natural, cloudy juices. The turnover from fruit juice in catering is also increasing." There are cafés where 15 of the 31 juices from the Drie Wilgen assortment are served.

Jan has been involved in organic juices and fruit from a young age. "My grandfather planted a fruit orchard with cherries, plums, apples and pears in the 30s." 10 to 15 years passed before the trees really came into production. However, the harvest was then so big that it was impossible for the Hellemans family to consume it all themselves. "As a child I put a sign by the side of the road, on which I wrote with chalk: 'unsprayed apples for sale'." Jan started making juice from the dropped fruit in the 70s, which he also sold.

More professional growers

Besides this he helped a fruit presser in the village and worked at a biodynamic care farms, where he also processed fruit into juice. "Organic didn't legally exist back then, there were no rules. I mainly supplied to natural shops." Last year the orchard at the parental home, where Jan no longer lives, was cleared. He gets the fruit for his juices from other certified growers in the region of Haspengouw and Haagland. The tropical fruit is bought from different specialised wholesalers.

"Over the last fifteen years there has been a shift to more professional, organic fruit growers. Now 80 to 90 percent is from a professional fruit grower. Thirty years ago 90 percent of the fruit we processed was from garden orchards." Of the 40 hectares that was in production then, 4 is left. "Various organisations are trying to plant garden orchards again."

100% Belgian fruit

The production has also shifted in recent years. In the last decade Jan worked with multiple Belgian pressers, now the fruit is pressed by a German company. The juice then goes in tanks to a bottler in Tilburg (NL). "We produce around 350,000 litres of juice per year," says Jan.

The fruit is bought from local growers as much as possible. The bottles carry the suitably proud slogan: '100% Belgian fruit'. "We try to report the origin as much as possible, but it's much more difficult for tropical fruit." The supply of the fruit varies, mangos can come from Peru, Mexico or India. This would mean adjusting the label too often.

Enough supply to grow

The supply is generally sufficient. "We have had some trouble with passion fruit and grapefruit," says Jan. "We then used white grapefruit instead of pink." Various tropical fruits are processed into the juices, including guava, pineapple, banana and mango. But there are also less exotic imported products such as Turkish oranges and Canadian cranberries.

The growing demand for the juices can continue to grow for now. According to Jan there is enough fruit available. "I can't process all of the organic apples that I buy into juice. This is why I sell some to compote factories."

More information:

De Drie Wilgen
Jan Hellemans
Bist 1
2560 Nijlen
+32 3411 10 51
+32 497 44 71 05
info@dedriewilgen.be
www.dedriewilgen.be