Visit to Andijk
Family
shareholders
gather at Pop Vriend Seeds
After
the coronavirus had thwarted any travel plans in the past two years,
KWS’ subsidiary Pop Vriend Seeds at Andijk in the Netherlands
received two visits from KWS’ family shareholders.
A
trip by members of the Arend Oetker family took place back in June,
when Marie Theres Schnell, Clara Oetker and Leopold Oetker visited
Andijk together with Felix Büchting. With keen interest, they
learned more about developments in KWS’ still young vegetable
activities on the trip, which came after the family’s visit to KWS’
birthplace in Klein Wanzleben last year.
The CEB Circle had to postpone its trip to the Netherlands twice because of the coronavirus-related restrictions, but the day finally came on the first weekend of September: The Büchting family and Hagen Duenbostel, Spokesperson of the Executive Board, were able to gain an impression of vegetable breeding in Andijk, a field KWS entered in 2019.
The visits to Pop Vriend Seeds were an all-round success, and members of the Oetker and Büchting families were delighted to talk and share notes with colleagues from the Business Unit Vegetables.
A similarly tight schedule awaited both groups of visitors, who were accompanied by Paul Degreef, head of KWS’ youngest Business Unit. In a presentation, the breeders at Andijk explained the special aspects involved in developing new vegetable varieties using the example of Pop Vriend’s main crops: spinach, bush beans and red beet. They stressed the advantage of being part of the KWS family and thus having access to cutting-edge technology. The family shareholders then learned how seed is harvested at Pop Vriend and processed and prepared for sale in various steps. The theoretical part concluded with a presentation on distribution of vegetable seed, a process that is very different from that for selling seed for agricultural crops.
Both visits were rounded out by insights into the location’s practical work. The families were able to get an idea of the seed processing facilities in Andijk. The visit finished with a tour of the trial fields and the greenhouses.
These trips to different company locations demonstrate the family shareholders’ attachment to KWS. |
INFO
The CEB-Circle
As long-standing Chairman of the Executive Board and later of the Supervisory Board, Carl-Ernst Büchting (1915–2010) – known as CEB for short – stood at KWS’ helm as a representative of the fifth generation of the founding family. His children and their families come together in the CEB Circle. To nurture contact with the company and to keep informed of the latest developments, the family visits a KWS location once a year, usually on the weekend around CEB’s birthday on September 6. The founding family’s traditionally close ties to the company are a hallmark of KWS and are to be continued in the future. |
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