Daan van der Kooij in business for 50 years

Today, Daan van der Kooij celebrates a special anniversary. The importer has been working in the fresh produce sector for 50 years already. The 68-year-old does not yet want to hear about retiring. “But I have adjusted myself to a new work regime. I used to work 50 to 60 hours per week, but now I ‘only’ work 40 hours.”

Daan went to the HBS (the Dutch Higher Civic School) and joined his father’s business when it was still called Jokofruit NV. “It was the time before computers and mobile phones. All communications went via telephone and telex. My father, Jo, had worked for Velleman & Tas for almost 25 years, until 1958, and he was one of the first to continue in the fruit trade independently. I had already often helped with storage and transfer of fruit during summer holidays when I was still in school. Back then the fruit arrived in unpacked in crates on conventional boats. Pallets and containers did not yet exist. At first I was supposed to do work placements in various countries, but once I was in the trade, that ship had sailed. Besides, we have always had a small number of employees. It was not until four years later that I went to Germany, to work in the wholesaler’s market in Dortmund for several months.”

Daan bought on the Citrus Auction of Rotterdam from the day it opened to the day it closed in 2002. “We mostly bought for German, Belgian and French customers at the auction. Importing for yourself was not allowed. You bought from the large importers at auction, who thought you should be happy that they let you buy from them. Back then, there was a strict line between importers and exporters, but that changed when the traders from Barendrecht started interfering in imports and vegetable exporters started supplementing their cargo with fruit from the Westland. We always focused on imported fruit. Overseas apples, pears and grapes were always my favourite. We traded a lot of citrus, but never imported it.” For Daan, the high point was in the 80s and 90s. “Import trade boomed, and many new products arrived, especially exotic ones. In those days we traded large parties of fruit, mostly destined for the German market.” 

“When I went into trade, every street had a baker’s, a butcher’s and a greengrocer’s, but now every neighbourhood has a supermarket. Supermarkets used to buy their products via the trade, but, for example, Lidl is nowadays the largest importer from Chile,” Daan illustrates the changes. “Because of that, trade is mostly preprogrammed nowadays.”

“I learned a lot from my father when he was trading. We always supplied a lot to German wholesaler’s markets - cars filled with overseas and Spanish fruit. Those days are over. Now Germany is supplied directly from those countries, and the number of wholesaler’s markets has halved. I definitely believe there is a future for import trade, because fruit will always be eaten. But it will not become easier in coming years, especially not for importers who do not have supermarkets on their list of customers,” says the experienced importer. 

When asked about his method of working over the years, Daan answers: “I have always had many friends in trade. Jan Hagé used to say: ‘you cannot make money from enemies.’ And that is true, it is better to laugh with your colleagues. Besides, it has always been our business to not betray our customer’s confidence. My father used to have a tile with an aphorism on it, and it said: In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister, (mastery only appears in self-restraint). That is why we always kept track of the situation, and focused on the niche market, and, presently, especially on the import of coconuts.” 

“You cannot afford to take risks either. Only the smallest thing has to happen in the field of food safety, and you are a horseless knight. Those regulations have got a bit out of control, if you ask me. Of course excesses should be dealt with. Wrong is wrong, that is a given. But when people are hired for controls, and they can never find anything, they start making up things, because ‘fruit does not grow in factories.’ That is fatal to trade, because a batch rejected by supermarkets is often a huge loss-making product for traders. That is why, over the years, people started cultivating with more awareness overseas. A side effect of that is that the shelf life of products, overseas grapes for example, has decreased sharply, because people use less pesticides.”

For more information:
Jokofruit B.V.
Schiehaven 13e
3024 EC Rotterdam

The Netherlands
Tel: +31 (0)10 4761166
Fax: +31 (0)10 4763368
jokofruit@joko.nl
daan@joko.nl
www.jokofruit.nl