Hans de Boer, a former commercial director at Dutch supplier Heemskerk Fresh Convenience, has been named as the new managing director of Barendrecht-based fresh produce company Olympic Fruit.
The appointment leaves former incumbent Thijs van den Heuvel to concentrate all of his efforts on leading Olympic Fruit's parent company, Olympic Food Group, as its chief executive.
Since its establishment 11 years ago, Olympic has built a solid reputation as a major importer of several products including table grapes, citrus and stonefruit, but the recent departures of Van Frassen and another key manager, Jan van den Adel, last year have forced it to rethink its commercial structure in order to continue serving some of the European market's major retail customers.
De Boer, for his part, is expected to build on Olympic's existing strategic partnerships and will be expected to ensure it offers clients the best quality while keeping a lid on costs in the supply chain.
'We want to look from the source to the shelf on behalf of consumers and, together with our partners, optimise among other things our proactive management of the category, as well as seeing how we can manage the supply chain as efficiently as possible,' he said following his appointment.
Van den Heuvel added: 'We are very pleased that Hans de Boer and our team are going to focus on the further professionalisation of Olympic Fruit. We wish him every success in our business.'
