Evers Specials believes beans and other sprouts should be on every shopping list. Although this Dutch company's products are entirely organic, they put a limited emphasis on that. Sales manager Koen van Kessel explains what factors they consider.
Harold and Koen at Biofach
That idea sprouted in the past. Harry Evers started a mushroom farm in 1962. Though successful, competition became increasingly fierce. He ultimately decided to switch entirely to growing bean sprouts. The influx of Asians into Europe brought Chinese restaurants to the Netherlands. That meant the demand for this product skyrocketed. That market and the production processes were still in their infancy, so optimizing traditional cultivation methods became necessary. Thus, Evers Specials was founded. As each bean sprouted, the company's passion grew. In the years that followed, Evers Specials transformed into a true expert.
Shareholders
Automation and technological developments that increased production capacity characterized the company in the first years of the new century. Cleaning lines, filling areas, and new loading docks were built, and they added cold stores. Six years ago, Koen van Kessel started as sales manager at the now highly developed Evers Specials. Besides his sales responsibilities, Koen had to professionalize the logistics system to shorten the chain. "Bean sprouts have a limited shelf life. From packaging to delivery must take only 12 to 24 hours," he begins.
"Delivery reliability is crucial, and that's only possible if you do the logistical planning in-house and can adapt it to customers' schedules." Koen managed to achieve that optimization in a relatively short time. As thanks, Evers Specials' shareholders - current and former bean sprout growers - gave him the chance to buy into the company. Koen did not let that opportunity pass him by. He has been a shareholder for three years and is responsible for all logistical, marketing, and sales processes, among other things.
Range expansion
For some, the pandemic is fast becoming a faded memory. Not for Koen. It marked the acceleration of realizing a long-anticipated market opportunity, transitioning to small packaging, and product assortment expansion. "Just before the pandemic, demand from restaurants was noticeably declining. During the pandemic, that trend grew, and demand was also coming under pressure in a broader sense. We, thus, decided to diversify horizontally and vertically. That meant we switched to focusing on small packaging for bean sprouts," says Koen. That strategic decision resulted in Evers Specials investing in new refrigerators and modifying its building.
"It was nerve-wracking, but I'm so proud that the organization and shareholders could do that repositioning together." That successful implementation has broadened the company's client portfolio, allowing it to respond more effectively to market fluctuations. "A crucial second policy point is concentrating our output towards Germany. We got the chance to acquire sprout processing machinery in Hamburg, which gave us direct access to the German market. Their requirement was that bean sprouts must be able to be combined with other sprouts. That acquisition and diversification mean the [German] retailer Edeka now, happily, offers our full range," says van Kessel.
Strategy
Koen wants to make bean and general sprouts even more popular and sees that they still have potential: "It's easy to use bean sprouts in the kitchen; that's an advantage. All you need to do is add them to your dish for two minutes, at the last moment. It's a delicious, healthy product, rich in vitamin C. For young people in particular, who have little time to cook, it's a great solution to have various vegetables that complement their lifestyle: fast, healthy, and convenient." Evers Specials' motto is 'Bean and other sprouts should be on every shopping list', and that has recently rapidly been given shape and substance.
There is, however, a modest emphasis on those beans being 100% organic. "We don't want to use that to encourage non-organic consumers to eat sprouts. It must be solely based on healthy, easy, and tasty values," Koen explains. A third strategic point of attention is purchasing distribution. "We sprout beans from mung beans, which we mainly purchase in Asia, and that's fine. But given the global developments characterized by the risk of increasing volatility, we're forced to reorient our purchasing policy. Spreading the risks doesn't only apply to our client portfolio, but equally to the purchasing market."
Social orientation
For Koen, doing business while respecting nature, the environment, and society is what sustainability is all about. "We work according to the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) basic code and are Planetproof certified. We, obviously, also operate within the legal regional and (inter)national environmental frameworks. Plus, we're always looking for new ways to minimize our production process's ecological footprint while maximizing the value for our partners," he says.
They have launched several projects that should help reduce the company's CO2 footprint by this year. "An important one is seeing if we can reuse the heat released while the beans sprout and adding that to our water heating system. According to the calculations, if successful, we could reduce our gas consumption by roughly 20%."
Besides focusing on business development and process optimization, social orientation is gaining increasing traction via initiatives Evers Specials takes regarding community aspects. "We co-founded the European Sprouted Seeds Association (ESSA). From there, we work closely with growers who cultivate our mung beans. We play a leading role in the ESSA, where I'm a board member. We jointly look for new solutions and collaborations, think outside the box, and experiment. We're up for the challenge. We roll up our sleeves and give it our all every day because our successes should impact our growers and customers' quality of life, too," the sales manager says.
Automation
He wants the whole company to be where it can create value. Not only for itself but for the entire chain, whether it concerns quality, product innovation, food safety, technical developments, or improving the vegetable sector. "We're always ahead of the curve. We use our know-how and experience to innovate, expand, and improve the international bean sprout and sprout market." For 2025 and well beyond that, a critical focus is automating the administration process as a whole. "Artificial Intelligence offers great potential, but as those opportunities arise, we must pay attention to the security risks using AI poses," Koen points out.
A line of thought that has become increasingly concrete over the past two years is whether Evers Specials could shift somewhat to direct interaction with consumers, so from B2B to business-to-consumer (B2C). "It's a fundamental issue. The most realistic approach is to keep developing a B2B policy for the wholesale/food service sector and, in parallel, for the B2C market."
Popular in German retail: Bean protein
A first step towards accomplishing that is implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) package. "We can then concentrate on the processes' input side, allowing us to adjust more quickly and flexibly without compromising the organizational level we want," Koen continues. "Implementing market demarcation on a fundamental level will lead to two basic administrative processes: the B2B and the B2C segment."
"We also want to develop our Western European market even more actively. We can deliver within 12 hours in a radius of 800 kilometers, 90% of the time. We'll continue guaranteeing that. All our logistical efforts are focused on that. We want to intensify our marketing communication efforts, too, because we won't rest until organic sprouts are on everyone's shopping list," Koen concludes. (CP)
This article was previously published in Primeur May 2025. Click here for the link to the entire edition
For more information:
Koen van Kessel
Evers Specials
33 Station Street
6515 AA, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 (0) 243 481 422
[email protected]
www.eversspecials.nl