“More interesting distant destinations besides China”

“We have chosen, just as the Americans do, to spend a lot of time on our presentation. We personally designed various small packagings, so that we could really market our goods as prime products. This has been well-received. On average, fruit spends 30 days in a container, and in most far-off destinations, temperatures are significantly higher. In the Netherlands, the cold chain is extremely well-developed. Everything is transported conditioned. That is often very different in new, far-off markets. That is why packaging and temperatures in the box, for example, are very important to improve shelf life.” Presentation in European retail is very important as well. Together with the category managers, they look to improve the fruit’s presentation at shop level.

New cold store

“A little further in the season, the pears are almost a year old,” Vernooij continues. “In order to continue to supply supermarkets with quality, careful investments have been made. For example, a new cold store has been built for Remco Vernooij, Mark’s brother, and responsible for the agronomic aspect. When building the new cold store, new technologies in the field of refrigeration have been used. We can now store our Conference pears for longer periods, cool them back down quicker, and we can monitor what is happening with the fruit very easily. We can therefore offer great quality year-round.”

Club strains and new markets

“We can distinguish ourselves by cultivating the Conference pear in the best-possible manner,” says Vernooij. “Additionally, we naturally also market traditional apples for supermarkets, but we market club strains as well, such as the Redlove apple. In cooperation with Jacco Merkens, we are trying to market this unique apple, with its red meat and high level of antioxidants. Besides the sales on existing markets, Urfruit devotes itself to building markets in new destinations. This is accompanied by trial and error, but we see this is beginning to pay off more and more. One of the most important pillars we have, is that a new market and all of its additional risks must result in a surplus value for the cultivator.”

Lowering costs

“We are cultivators ourselves, and we know exactly what is happening. We want to know all of the costs during the process, from picking to arrival at the supermarkets, what it adds and what we can leave out. But with complete traceability and the necessary certifications, such as BRC and GlobalGAP, because food safety is very important. For example, we no longer need internal transport to auctions or traders. Besides, we work closely with large supermarkets, so that we can keep our stocks at minimum.”