TRADE AND MARKETING Schouten focuses more on export and commerce after 75 years You’ve been specialists in grading machinery for years now. When can we expect the first Schouten electronic grader? (GS) ‘We’re already busy developing one. That is not as easy as it looks, because we work in a niche market that mainly processes unwashed products. In order to design the best possible grader, we’re working together with two other companies. But I can’t tell you more about that yet, nor who the two other partners are. ’ Is that a new strategy at Schouten, working together with other companies? (AS) ‘Working together is something we’ve been doing for many years. For example, we’ve been working for years with Bercomex in Hoorn for the production of flower bulb machines. But we’ve also worked with vacuum cleaner supplier Agrodust for some time now, for which we make big bag fillers. And we collaborate with Oldenhuis Export for which we manufacture the Potato Care. That’s a unit for treating seed potatoes with preservatives. In addition, we also use fall breakers from Grisnich. This is the result of the collaboration with Tolsma Techniek, the company with which we sell equipment for export.’ What will the 80th anniversary of Schouten Kampen be like? (GS) ‘Our most important aim for the last 75 years has been holding on to our market position. To move steadily forward and keep doing what we’re good at is our motto. We don’t have to be the biggest, nor the best. We just want to make a robust and reasonably-priced product, earn a reasonable income and have satisfied customers. We don’t say ‘We now have a turnover of 7 million euros and that should be 15 million in five year’s time.’ We prefer a good balance in costs and expenditure. In fact, this has been Schouten Kampen’s strength for 75 years.’ (AS) ‘We’ve observed, though, that the moment you make a particular choice, you may have to start moving faster than you did before. Take, for example, the successful collaboration with APH. This is such a success that we’re practically sucked along by it. To keep up, we needed to move faster than we were used to. This means that we’re looking urgently for more production space. That’s more a result than an end in itself. What will definitely be different in five years’ time is that you’re going to find our machinery in more places in the world. Especially in the domain of the potato. Our plans for export expansion are purely a matter of potato mechanisation. We’ll also be more active in project work like with APH, because there are not many other companies with the expertise to give complete supervision like we do. The projects range Gerben Schouten: ‘As we see the multiplication of seed potatoes gradually moving to other countries, we think it is important to spend more time on the export market.’ from true-to-life drawings for tenders to complete solutions that can simply be installed anywhere in the world. This is an important added value aspect of our company and that’s what we’d like to expand in the coming five years. ● Leo Hanse Potato World 2012 • number 4 7 Pagina 6
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