Entrepreneurship over the years

Past

"My parents are real entrepreneurs. Since they set up the business in 1978, they have explored all sorts of new markets and crops. Until they came across the Phalaenopsis. My dad's got guts. He would say to the supplier of cuttings: 'Just give me everything you've got.' He was confident he would find a market for them. His motto was: tackle it first, then optimise it. You need that sort of big-picture mindset to build a business. And look where we are now: we sell more than 6,000,000 Phalaenopsis orchids a year and employ a hundred people. I'm proud of the way my parents have handled this. My father has also always been committed to the RFH cooperative, first within the FPC and, in recent years, as a member of the Members' Council. A man with a cooperative spirit."

Today

"The path I'm following is different from my parents'. That's not surprising, really: they built the company up, and I'm carrying on the work. That calls for a different mindset. What's more, I'm a business administrator, not a crop specialist. My main focus is on the company's strategic direction: together with the board and the management team, I draw up the annual plans and the investment plan for the next five years. We are now working hard to make our operations even more sustainable and to achieve 100 percent green cultivation. Good employment practices are also an important issue. I encourage entrepreneurship within the company. Do our specialists see opportunities for innovation? Well, let them give it a go. For example, in terms of reducing energy consumption and increasing automation. Labour costs are continuing to rise. That is why we are already looking into how we can automate the process of stacking and packing. I expect we'll have that sorted in five years' time."

Future

If we really want to make progress in this sector, we will have to work together. I believe in that very strongly. It's not, of course, by chance that we're working together with five other growers at Riza Growers. You can't figure out and fund every innovation yourself. That's what you need each other for. And when it comes to sales and marketing, too, you're often stronger together – for example, when facing competition in the retail sector. You see this much more often in vegetable growing. I hope this becomes more commonplace in the world of flowers and plants too. It's true: if we want to remain relevant in the future, we need to share both knowledge and costs. Collaboration is not a luxury, but an absolute necessity.