"Strong demand for vegetable packs"

Jakova has traditionally operated in the trade of onions and cleaned onions for industrial use. This is still an important branch of the company, but following the company's takeover in 2010, Hans van Kemenade saw opportunities to take up additional activities. He found a challenge in vegetable packas for retail, for soup, pasta and ratatouille ingredients. "We see a lot of opportunities with these products."

"We assembled several packs using various vegetables. That way we distinguish ourselves from the ready-made meals, instead supplying the products outside refrigeration, with which the consumer can make a fresh soup or dish themselves. It's a reasonably new market, but there is demand for it. The products are already selling at one of the largest retailers in the Netherlands. Now the challenge is to further deploy this in Western Europe," Hans says.

The soup packs are already available for vegetable soup, tomato soup, pumpkin soup, onion soup and pea soup. "Onion, pea and pumpkin soup are real winter products. The challenge is to find replacements in the summer, so we can offer a complete year-round concept. For pastas and ratatouille, we also want to do further consumer studies to see what the consumers are interested in."

"It's still early days for us, we're entering the first full winter with our packages, but in the Netherlands we're talking to the various purchasing organizations, and we're also expecting more demand from abroad. Also, so many diversities and origins of packages are possible, that we'll continue to evolve for quite a while!"

For more information:
Jakova bv
De Langeweg 9A
4762 RA Zevenbergen
info@jakova.nl
www.jakova.nl