Built to Grow, Built to Let Go: Scaling Euroberry for the Next Chapter

“Euroberry is at the cutting edge of the frozen fruit industry, ever expanding their operations and delving into new markets. Their story is one that all entrepreneurs are familiar with: perseverance, spotting opportunities, and taking risks at the right time.”

It’s been 20 years and these three characteristics, together with the input from Grow, has led to success in both domestic and markets in the frozen fruit sector within South Africa.

Euroberry was started by Henk van Nes, an enigmatic entrepreneur with 30 years’ experience in the fruit canning industry. Initially a side project to keep him busy during his early retirement, Henk hit on a niche corner of the market – trading in industrial grade fruit not suitable for the fresh market. His ‘business on the side’ proved so successful that in 2000 he brought his son, Marc, on as a 50/50 partner.

Between Henk’s industry experience and Marc’s mechanical engineering background in providing machinery for the food manufacturing industry, they boasted an impressive knowledge of the food processing industry.

Completing their team was Marc’s wife, Vivian, an accomplished and intuitive marketing manager who brought her instinctive skills to their family- run enterprise.

This tiny team went from something small to something far more complex in a relatively short space of time. It’s quite amazing what they’ve been able to achieve, but it didn’t come without a few growing pains. Here is their story about how they expanded their operations, grew their team, tackled challenges, and became market leaders in the frozen fruit sector within South Africa.

One of the first moves the team made to win a greater share of the market was to secure in the early 2000s reliable deliveries of year-round frozen fruit that could be stored for longer lengths of time. With the right manufacturers on side, they set their ambitions higher and signed on Dutch-based company, SVZ International, winning the coveted position as their appointed Southern African agent.

Business quite literally bloomed and boomed. Says Marc, “It was genuinely exciting to become the preferred supplier of fruit ingredients to the majority of processors in South Africa, but with this growth, we were faced with new challenges.”

The team had to decide whether they would stay at their then current capacity or open bigger facilities to accommodate future growth, allowing them to push into different markets. They chose to grow, knowing that this wasn’t the end solution. Just a door to new opportunities and challenges.

“If I look back and see how far we’ve come, I know that it’s largely because of the invaluable connection that we have with our coach. This relationship has played a major role in building a sustainable future for our company.”

Amidst the company’s burgeoning success and new journey, Marc and Vivian bought out Henk and their trust to become the sole owners of the company in 2015. Father and son had worked closely together over the years to build Euroberry and while this move gave Marc full autonomy, it was an emotional process and left Marc on his own.

Explains Marc, “It wasn’t just that this was an emotional transition. We were also suddenly very aware that we didn’t have enough managerial support to run the company effectively and cater for the growth that we were encountering and the growth we knew was in store.”

It was during this time that Marc connected with a Grow coach. As an acquaintance from years past, Marc shared a natural connection with his coach, paving the way for Marc to rely on his coach for business and personal support. This was particularly evident when his coach walked both parties through Henk’s exit from the company.

Moreover, wanting to professionalise the company so that it could expand, Marc worked with his coach to strategically align his thoughts for the short-, medium-, and long-term needs of the company and devise a business plan for new, state-of-the- art storage and production facilities. These new facilities became more than a plan when the first buildings’ phase was completed in 2018.

This increased Euroberry’s capacity to 3000 pallets of distribution and, 3000 tonnes of frozen fruit storage. Euroberry introduced fruit production as a new initiative with two tonnes of fruit produced per hour. Additionally, plans were made to extend their facilities in 2019, making way for more production with different retail options.

With Grow on board, Euroberry had carved out a clear path to the future. But to achieve this, Marc and Vivian realised that they needed to take a closer look at their team. They had already brought on an SVZ colleague of many years, Bart Lauret, as their commercial director and restructured the management into three major functions, namely commercial, operational, and finance activities. But in spite of these positive steps, the team acted intuitively to do all the things they were meant to and weren’t operating cohesively.

Says Vivian, “With our coaches guidance, we started putting systems, tools, and objectives into context, whether it was in the area of finance, human resources, or strategy, to show us the benefit of accountability and regular rhythms – and an immediate benefit was stronger unity and drive.” Adds Marc, “And now, through our new structure each of our leaders is on an equal footing, has a defined role with formalised rhythms, and improved interactions, allowing the straight-line thinkers and creative thinkers to find value in each other’s perspective and contributions to the company’s goals.”

However, there was also a much bigger picture involved in this process. Marc and Vivian wanted to make the company independent of themselves and step back from their day-to-day involvement. To aid this, Marc and his coach employ team coaching sessions to prepare them to take on larger roles in developing the business and pursuing goals.

To support this, Vivian and Marc developed a strategic council to better equip the company to stay strong and keep true to its path. Additionally, they have created a forum out of which they and their team can visualise plans and make public their thinking. Being surrounded by a consummate leadership team freed Marc and Vivian to focus on their succession planning. Says Marc, “Our next step has been to prepare the team for the future, so I delegated responsibilities to my three leaders, giving them free reign to make their own decisions – in consultation with me if necessary.”

With more structure around their internal processes and a firmer grip on their vision for the future, Marc and Vivian are now pioneering their way out of Euroberry with the same tenacity and drive that saw them make a success of the company.

Says Marc, “We’re very proud of what we achieved on our own, but having seen what our coach helped us accomplish leads me to believe that every business leader and company will find tremendous value in seeking an outside perspective, the type that is uniquely provided by business coaches who are well positioned to give question to the why and the how and give sound advice.”

“If I look back and see how far we’ve come, I know that it’s largely because of the invaluable connection that we have with our coach.”

When you’re at the top. Everyone’s looking to you for the answers. You’re the leader, thinker, decision maker, mentor, planner and doer. Sustained growth and scaling up weighs on your shoulders. Yet, so many questions ruminate in your head.

When you are feeling stuck or overwhelmed yet committed to a sea change, you need a thinking partner to help you see the wood for the trees.

An impartial sounding board with years in the seat and war stories to share. Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture, and don’t do it alone.

Grow. Helping businesses find clarity and the confidence to lead with it.