PRESS RELEASE
The Netherlands, BIOFACH 2015 country of the year:
much more than clogs, canals and roadsters...
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BIOFACH 2015 focuses on organic diversity produced in the
Netherlands
Approximately one billion euros in turnover generated from
organic food every year
Export firms with a wide organic range deliver all over Europe
Every February the international organic industry meets at BIOFACH,
the World’s leading Trade Fair for Organic Food, and nothing was
going to stop 2,263 exhibitors and 42,445 visitors celebrating in fitting
fashion when the fair took place for the 25th time in 2014! Every year
at the beginning of May the heart of the Netherlands is engulfed by a
rush of colour, with many square miles north of Amsterdam blooming
with tulips, narcissi and hyacinths that captivate visitors from every
corner of the planet with their beauty. Among the bulb and cut flower
growers there are organic producers, who sell their products all over
the world. The Netherlands is an export-oriented country – and this
doesn’t just apply to flowers, but also to other industries such as the
food sector. The country’s organic industry has developed into a
professional partner for both national and international companies in
wholesale or retail. Reason enough to be presented as the BIOFACH
country of the year from from 11–14 February 2015!
According to provisional estimates by Bionext, an umbrella organisation in
Zeist (NL) for the Dutch organic industry, the turnover generated from
organic food in the Netherlands increased to 1.07 billion EUR in 2013. Bavo
van den Idsert, Bionext’s director, believes the growth probably equates to
6-8 % in the organic sector as a whole and 9 % just in natural food
specialist stores. In the Netherlands itself, natural food specialist stores are
the second most important after food retailers when it comes to the sale of
organic products. In 2012, for example, conventional supermarket chains
achieved 55 % of the turnover, while specialist stores enjoyed a share of
30 %. The restaurant industry accounted for 8 % and other sales channels
such as weekly markets, farm-gate sales and Internet stores for 7 %.
Holland has a long tradition of trade, and this includes the organic sector.
From very early on, companies near the sea began to take advantage of of
the convenient maritime transport connections to countries all around the
globe. The ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam are key hubs for importers
and exporters, and well-known producers such as Eosta, Tradin and Do-it
very ably supply not only the domestic market with organic goods and
commodities, but also the rest of Europe. Eosta in particular has made a
name for itself in the industry, thanks to sustainability initiatives like
Nature & More and Soil & More. The quantity of exported Dutch organic
products actually increased by 10 % in 2013 compared to the previous
year.
The Dutch organic market has a lot of potential in general, and Mr van den
Idsert is therefore optimistic about the future. He said: “More and more
consumers are shopping at natural food stores and organic supermarkets,
because that’s where the widest range of organic products and healthoriented items is. Domestically grown products are also becoming
increasingly popular.” Bionext expressly welcomes the activities concerning
quality assurance and risk-based checks that are carried out by the two
manufacturers’ associations VBP (Netherlands) and Aoel (Germany). Mr
van den Idsert said, “There are also a large number of projects that are
optimising quality through measures such as the introduction of fair trade
for animal feed, improved local supplying with protein animal feed, and the
further development of biodiversity and nature conservation standards.”
He went on to say that other topics currently being focused on include the
acceleration of organic seed development, residue monitoring and the
continuous further development of quality assurance systems for organic
food. The Netherlands has plenty of expertise in this area too.
So, there will be lots to discover when the BIOFACH exhibition halls are
filled with masses of Dutch flair next February. In 2014 the Netherlands was
represented by 88 exhibitors and 1,174 visitors at the world’s
leading trade fair. It will be exhibiting as country of the year in Nuremberg
for the second time in 2015, having already enjoyed the honour once
before in 2004.
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One of the key areas of Dutch organic production is cheese making. Of a
turnover of 1.7 billion EUR generated by the cheese production industry as
a whole, 26 million EUR comes from organic production. One of the most
well-known exporters is Bastiaansen, a cheese dairy west of
s’Hertogenbosch. It supplies to German specialist stores via natural food
wholesalers, but organic dairy products are currently enjoying a surge in
popularity in the Netherlands as well. In 2012 the turnover from items in this
category rose by 11 % to a total of 218 million EUR, which equates to
almost 5 % of the organic market. This is very good compared to meat and
sausages, whose market share is just 2.7 %. The market share occupied
by organic products in the Dutch food sector is growing, but at 3.2 % it was
still a little behind Germany (3.9 %) in 2013 and leader Switzerland, where
the figure was 6.9 %.
The most important suppliers for natural food retailers are the wholesalers
Udea, Natudis and Odin, and all three of these have their own natural food
specialist stores or a franchise system as well. Udea is experiencing the
greatest momentum in the market at the moment. The wholesaler saw an
increase of nearly 22 % last year, a jump from 74 million to 90 million EUR.
Besides EkoPlaza, Udea delivered to 500 other natural food shops,
chemists, local country suppliers and restaurants in 2013, but did not
deliver to any conventional supermarket chains. Udea is owned by Erik
Does and Erik-Jan van den Brink. The two have worked together since
1995 and merged their wholesale warehouses in 1999 in Veghel, a town of
40,000 residents. The 67 EkoPlaza stores generate a total turnover of 100
million EUR and about half of these belong to Udea, whose headquarters
are in Veghel, which is situated in the south of Holland between
s’Hertogenbosch and Eindhoven. The easily accessible town is also home
to warehouses of numerous food store chains. New stores are set to open
in Capelle aan den IJssel, Haarlem, Leidschendam and The Hague this
year, while another seven sales outlets are being expanded.
Natudis is headquartered in Harderwijk in the province of Gelderland and in
Natuurwinkel has its own franchise system. Odin is creating a chain of its
own too called Estafette. 115 of the 365 natural food specialist stores and
health shops in the Netherlands are currently provided by Udea, Natudis or
Odin, making the proportion just under one third. Natudis, which now
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belongs to Dutch group Wessanen, supplies approximately 9,000 items to
500 natural food specialist stores in the Netherlands and Belgium. 30
Natuurwinkel stores are tied to the Harderwijk-based wholesaler by its
franchise system. There were about 60 of these stores a few years ago, but
most of the other 30 have now switched to EkoPlaza.
Odin, which is a natural food wholesaler headquartered in Geldermalsen,
prioritises Demeter goods. As the third of the three wholesalers mentioned,
Odin has started to build up its own trade channel to increase sales and
there are currently 18 stores under the name Estafette. Odin was actually
already familiar to many outside of Netherlands over ten years ago
because of its extremely successful subscription vegetable delivery service
which covered over 30,000 households.
Contacts for the press and media
Barbara Böck, Helen Kreisel-Gebhard and Ellen Damarowski
Tel +49 (0) 9 11. 86 06-83 28
Fax +49 (0) 9 11. 86 06-12 83 28
[email protected]
All press releases, further information and photos are available at
www.biofach.de/press and www.vivaness.de/press.
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