A few months ago, the vegetable cutting company Nomad was founded in Antwerp. Besides processing fruit and vegetables, the company also produces Asian and Belgian meals and components. Jegerings.com supplied the machines for the new cutting kitchen.
Nomad was founded by partners Christophe de Mey and Tom Claessens. The latter is the manager of N.V. Belgian Fresh Food, also located in Antwerp. The wholesaler is one of the largest suppliers for restaurants in Belgium. Christophe is in charge of everyday management of Nomad. He’s been working in the food branch for ten years now. “In recent years, I dedicated myself to convenience, and I have a passion for everything culinary. The last five years, we’ve seen the trend for convenience making progress. The products offered up till now, however, didn’t contain enough fresh products and too many additives, in our opinion.”
That’s why the gentlemen decided to invest in a company that can supply extremely fresh products to buyers because of an extra short supply chain. “For cut fruit and vegetables, these are restaurants that are supplied under the Nomad label through Claessens (BFF). The meals are supplied directly to premium supermarkets by Nomad,” Christophe explains. In Nomad’s cutting kitchen, scorzonera and Jerusalem artichoke are produced, among other products, as well as julienne leek and carrot. Additionally, traditional meal components such as beans and sprouts in bacon and potato wedges are prepared as well. Vegetables are also conserved by means of lactose-fermentation.
Bringing routine into production
The new company started with 11 employees. The number of workers is expected to increase to 20 within a year. The production of cut fruit and vegetables and the preparation of meals might be done at two separate locations in future. The production currently still takes place under the same roof, but in separate workshops. “The coming period it’s mostly important to bring routine into the production,” Christophe says. “For setting up the cutting kitchen, we chose machines from jegerings.com. We’ve known this company for 20 years, and are very pleased with the quality and reliability of the machines.”
When purchasing the new machines, they mostly looked at the quality and the options for processing both large and small volumes.
Christophe: “Regarding cutting quality, for example, it was important for us that the products look as if they’ve been manually cut, because we supply the premium segment. During a visit to Jegerings, we were given an extensive demonstration of all of the desired products. We were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful cutting quality of the belt cutter and the 3-dimensional square cutter. We also think the ease of use and hygienic finishing are of a high level. Additional advantage was the super fast delivery time, so that we could get started right away.”
More information:
Jegerings
Jan Jegerings
Food Nomad
Christophe de Mey