Company
Daan van der Giessen, SanLucar:
“There’s much still to gain with price, flavour, and continuity” SanLucar has been around since 1993, and the brand is wellestablished in Germany and Austria. Yet, it was only five years ago that SanLucar citrus, exotics, and soft fruit were first introduced in the Netherlands. Daan van der Giessen and Joel Versteeg are responsible for SanLucar Benelux. Daan says that entering a new market was not easy.
“A
fruit and vegetable brand isn’t common and usually remains limited to a single product or a variety’s commercial name. Think of Pink Lady, Jazz, Zespri, and Chiquita. The SanLucar brand, however, includes a wide fruit and vegetable range,” says Daan. Getting retailers to give the brand a chance turned out to be the biggest challenge. “Experience has taught us that, given sufficient visibility at the point of sale, consumers quickly adopt the brand.”
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AGF Primeur 3 • 2022
Daan van der Giessen
SPECIALIST a challenge when entering the Benelux Retailers are very much focused on pri- market. vate labels, says Daan. This is a great way for them to manage their price image and “At first, it was difficult because our brand for their shoppers to get value for money. concept is at odds with many retailers’ “Private labels are general, with the right philosophy. Where the main focus is on price-quality ratio. But, there’s also room private label and price, we try to find our for specialists with premium products. added value elsewhere. By adding a premiThey can appeal to those willing to pay a um product as a premium brand, we draw little more for products with more to offer. attention to the product, quality, taste, That’s what we want to do with the SanLu- and emotion instead of price. So, we can car brand.” That starting point also posed pay growers a fair price and allow retail-
