After more than a year-long process, the news is out: Agro Care and CombiVliet want to merge. The proposed merger of the tomato growers evokes not just surprise but admiration. "An expected development but nevertheless impressive" and "Unprecedented in the Netherlands" are just two online reactions following the announcement on Friday.
1,000 hectares by 2030. At Agro Care's 25th-anniversary celebration, the large tomato grower announced this ambitious goal. Anyone who thought Agro Care would quietly build new crops toward this target has not been paying attention. In the Netherlands, Agro Care has seen little room for expansion for some time.
"We find the business climate in the Netherlands, to put it mildly, 'not pleasant'," said Kees van Veen of Agro Care a few years ago. With one exception: Agriport is a good place to do business. Both Agro Care and CombiVliet completed the latest of many expansion phases there just last year.
Internationally, Agro Care sees many more opportunities. With the recent announcement of merger plans with their big neighbor and close colleague CombiVliet, the company is taking a significant step. Agro Care is nearing 500 hectares in terms of acreage.
Clear goal
Agro Care has publicly stated its goal. CombiVliet was not surprised by it. Since 2018, they have been cautiously exploring options for 'intensified cooperation.' Gradually, the 'merger' option emerged.
The valuation date for the merger is set for January 1, 2023. "The process that follows is 'more work than previously thought,'" confesses Martine van der Meer, Manager of HRM & Communication at CombiVliet. Fluctuating energy prices and international locations have made the process longer than expected.
Meanwhile, CombiVliet itself has growth plans. "We have expressed it less emphatically, but we are also working on plans. It is also in our slogan, 'Grow together,'" says Martine. "We see that you have to get bigger to meet all demands."
"No different for the market"
The merged company hopes that the emergence of this powerful tomato combo will inspire other growers to join these long-standing giants. Martine, who previously worked in the plant-growing industry, is positively amazed at how much knowledge sharing already occurs between tomato growers. "They already share so much with each other, sometimes with other growers," she says.
Agro Care and CombiVliet already share all cultivation information, Martine notes. All tomatoes go to Harvest House. "We won't become different for the market." Growers coordinate crops among themselves. After the merger, nothing will change for Agro Care and CombiVliet. The coordination through Harvest House will remain. "This'll shortly happen between two companies rather than one only."
Collaborations
To grow, Agro Care and CombiVliet built many new greenhouses, first in the Netherlands, later internationally. This also involved cooperation. Procurement and project management agency CombiCoop helps the two companies grow. "CombiCoop is mainly for building new companies and projects. That company already belongs to us together," Martine points out.
The cooperation on many fronts between the two big tomato growers has not always been visible, especially to the outside world. The press release on the proposed merger, now with the ACM for approval, highlights this.
A whole list of collaborations follows: an in-house seed and breeding company (Axia Vegetable Seeds), a plant nursery (WPK, previously announced as a sign of closer cooperation), a software supplier (Nitea), energy companies (ECW), an employment agency (NL Jobs), a tomato processing company (Greenblend), a packaging company, and distribution centers (Greenpack).
"Everything in our own hands"
"We already work together a lot," Martine emphasized on Friday in addition to announcing the proposed merger. From her field of work, she gives an example of close cooperation in the personnel field. "There is coordination on filling vacancies. In the last two years, people who applied to one have also been placed with the other in consultation. For example, if one had no place and the other did."
Another example is the staff handbook. "That was 99% unified a year and a half ago. We compared regulations and ensured we weren't reinventing the wheel. A lot has already been harmonized."
At the 25th anniversary of Agro Care, Arjan Flikweert of CombiCoop describes it well in the anniversary magazine. "CombiVliet and Agro Care like to keep everything in their own hands and go to the source. Especially in terms of knowledge, information and sourcing of things." The previous move, joining plant nursery WPK, fits this approach welll.
Conjunction
The employees of both companies were informed before the merger announcement. They were "already slowly taken along on the journey." In the monthly staff newsletters, we have gradually mentioned the option more and more. Through those newsletters, our associates read along. We have also been talking to people and keeping them well informed."
On July 1, the most recent staff newsletter was released. "In it, we told them that we are going to merge and that our name will be Agro Care." The latter is "quite a thing," but at CombiVliet, they also understand that the name Agro Care better suits its international ambitions. "And soon we will no longer be a family business, so the name Van Vliet will no longer fit the company name." The name won't disappear abruptly; there will be a slow phase-out.
Among others, Roy van Vliet and Eric van Heijningen of CombiVliet reacted to the news on LinkedIn. Their reactions show pride and enthusiasm. Eric van Heijningen, Finance Director of CombiVliet, praises the merger process, the help of external parties, and the "fine colleagues of Agro Care. "But well, of course, we had been dating each other for a while."
For more information:
Agro Care / CombiVliet
Martine van der Meer (Communication & HRM)
06 10 10 55 30
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.agrocare.nl
www.combivliet.nl