These days, it is not only Tommies tomatoes rolling over Greenco's conveyor belts. After a few tough years, this Dutch company, which celebrates the Tommie brand's 20th anniversary this year, has changed its strategy. It still grows and packages snack tomatoes, but even more than before, Greenco is also a packaging specialist. And creative choices are still being made.
Jos van Mil
On a Wednesday in mid-January, we visited Jos van Mil and Richard de Jong at their office in the Netherlands. With Greenco switching to a new salary payment system, things had been hectic for a while. Unsurprisingly, there were some teething problems. So, Richard, who has to ensure everyone gets paid, only briefly joined us before getting back to his computer.
These issues are minor compared to the problems the company faced five years ago when Greenco found itself in dire straits and was forced to divest itself of several growing locations. However, at the start of 2025, the company is in good shape again. "We're back to our old selves," says Jos, who has just returned to work after some health issues. He and Grenco are doing well again.
The golden briefcase
In its first decade, Tommies - the company's snack tomato brand - "sold itself". Jos beams when he thinks back on those good times. Cherry tomatoes were a new concept, and the company was good at not only growing but marking this new product, too. "We expanded like crazy," Jos begins. "It was an almost unstoppable snowball."
Greenco made its name, time and again, with new ideas, concepts, and packaging. Jos reminisces about trips to the PMA, a large produce trade show in the USA. "We [Jos and Jan Zegwaard] would walk around with our briefcase that we'd sprayed gold. People would stop and stare and ask, 'What's with the gold briefcase?' It was full of new ideas," he recounts.
After the first ten years or so, competition for snack tomatoes logically and unsurprisingly increased. Greenco had become a large corporation with huge overheads. And then came 2016—the year of hail damage. Within minutes, the snack tomato specialist's greenhouses were among those destroyed by this unforeseen weather. "In one fell swoop, we lost 40% of our total surface production area." Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Greenco quickly began looking for alternatives. "We bought extra crops, including those that need plenty of light. We wanted to be producing in the coming winter," says Van Mil.
Tommies anno 2025
In hindsight, not the best choices were made in fear of losing market share due to extreme weather conditions, he admits. "When, in 2017, even more snack tomatoes flooded the market, we were stuck with agreements we'd made." In the following years, Greenco did away with several cultivation locations and returned to basics. The shareholders, including Jos, are now back in the driver's seat, with two managers, Richard and Ruud Poels, at the helm.
Come 2025, and the snack tomato specialist still has three growing sites, one close to its packaging plant, and it leases a single greenhouse. The spectacular rise of the snack tomato is over, so things quietened down at Greenco. Jos knows the company has been less conspicuous in recent years. That is partly because the Tommies brand is far less visible in the Netherlands, he explains. Supermarkets no longer carry the brand and Greenco now supplies snack tomatoes under a private label." You can, however, still find Tommies in greengrocers, camping shops, and at the Van der Valk hotel chain. The Van der Valk in Utrecht even still has a few of our snack tomato vending machines," he says.
Still Sweetelle
As always, the company markets the Sweetelle snack tomato variety via The Greenery. That is quite something, especially since the market has started growing more resistant varieties out of fear of the ToBRF virus. Greenco's crops, too, include a resistant variety. "The variety we cultivate is vital. It lets us stand out. We've been growing Sweetelle for 15 years." If Jos were to do a blind taste test, he swears he would still manage to pick out the variety he grows himself.
Van Mil acknowledges that choosing this non-ToBRFV-resistant variety is risky. "Yet we still do so, as do the growers we work with," he points out. Although Greenco itself now grows fewer varieties, snack tomato volumes have remained stable, even increasing slightly, in recent years, says Jos. "In the summer, four Dutch growers cultivate Tommies for us. Winter is trickier, and we've recently had no local lit cultivation during that time. Then, snack tomatoes come from growers in Spain and Morocco and involve substantial acreage."
Tommies TOV
Overseas, however, Tommies are still abundant. "I still believe in the Dutch market for snack tomatoes, but I feel that consumers abroad are more willing to pay for premium products. In Scandinavia, for example, our Tommies are still on shelves as premium products at higher prices. We also supply the Middle East and Iceland, and have had inquiries from Ireland as well. Hong Kong, too, where we've also been supplying Tommies for years, wanted regular vine tomatoes under the Tommies brand. We now also offer that," Jos explains.
He is optimistic about the snack vegetable market in the Netherlands, too. "Snack vegetables are here to stay. The supermarkets are full of them." That, though, is also challenging. "Snack tomatoes have become a commodity in the Netherlands. You hardly see any brands on Dutch fruit and vegetable shelves anymore," Jos observes. He mentions Looye as the striking exception of greenhouse vegetables. "They're truly distinctive. You can't simply copy that. I find that's impressive."
Labor is an issue in the snack tomato sector. "It's expensive. Here, workers get €6 or €7 for 15 minutes of work; in Morocco, that's a full day's pay," Van Mil remarks. Competition is fierce, which has led to a price drop. "You have to keep going, but for how long?" Greenco has worked with growers in Spain and Morocco for years. "They cultivate a fantastic quality product, but it's different," he says.
New partnerships
Jos has always been very involved in the packaging side of things. He calls it 'his hobby' and his creative outlet, and nowadays, Jos gets to apply that creativity more internally, too. "I love my current role." The organization has been adjusted in recent years, now that Greenco has less of its own cultivation and has started doing more packaging, also for third parties. "There's less room for new ideas these days. That shelf is already quite full, and most clients want top-quality sealing. Packaging entirely in cardboard is tricky. "People want to see the product clearly, and it seems cardboard packaging also involves even more manual labor," he explains.
Still, there is a greater-than-ever focus on packaging because Greenco has undertaken a new role as a packaging specialist for all kinds of greenhouse vegetables. "We, for example, have been packaging standard vine tomatoes and snack cucumbers and bell peppers for Jumbo and Hoogvliet [two Dutch supermarkets] for two years now. And, this year, for the first time, English cucumbers. These come from a grower who contacted us asking if we could package those, too. We'll package that grower's cucumbers in shrink wrap. And who knows, that may also bring new work."
Over the past few years, Greenco has ensured HelloFresh has tomatoes in its vegetable packs. "Nowadays, that includes our own tomatoes. And it's nice when they ask for my input regarding the packaging as well," says Jos. Another special collaboration is with another new name in the Netherlands' fresh produce retail world, Picnic. "Last year, we supplied some of Picnic's fruit and vegetables. We hope to do that this year, too. Talks are ongoing."
Packaging hall Greenco
Telling horticulture's story
The same morning we interviewed Jos, he had spoken with someone from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO). They discussed Tommies and Dutch horticulture as a whole. He enjoys that and points out that telling the 'Dutch horticulture' story is vital. The RVO is working on such a story. A visit to Tomatoworld, the demo location just around the corner from Greenco, which Jos is involved in, helps with that. "I'm happy to help tell the story of horticulture. But it's even better when people from outside, like the doctors from Caring Doctors, talk about fruit and vegetables' health benefits," Jos explains.
Five years ago, they had no idea they would head in this direction, Jos admits. The reorientation worked out well, though. The trucks still come and go, but not always sporting Tommies on their sides or even loaded with them. "We have a fantastic warehouse and can use it well." Jos does not expect the company to add new greenhouses immediately but does not rule out growth, per se. "That will, however, be with our existing partnerships with growers," he concludes.
This article was previously published in Primeur May 2025. Click here for the link to the entire edition
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