Jan van Nes, a leading member of the South Africa fruit export trade, has been appointed as the new managing director of Hagé International, the import arm of Dutch fresh produce marketer The Greenery.
Following recent redundancies – part of a major restructuring across the entire group that saw around one-third of its 1,200-strong workforce laid off – the erstwhile general manager of South African Fruit Exporters and former chairman of industry body Fruit South Africa has emerged as the man to consolidate Hagé's position as a key player in the European fresh produce import business.
Van Nes had already joined Hagé more than a year ago to oversee its sourcing operation in South Africa. He is now set to leave Cape Town, his home for well over a decade, and relocate to his native Netherlands.
The most notable departure from Hagé since interim chief executive Okke Koo and financial director Albert Knol began to implement their restructuring plan back in December was import director Eric Lagerweij.
Others no longer with the company include Matthijs Nijhoff, Corrie Visbeen and marketing manager Esther van den Ende.
Visbeen, who handled Hagé's exotics programme, has taken up a new role at Nature's Pride, while Horlings has joined Barendrecht-based horeca specialist Rungis.
Nijhoff, meanwhile, has teamed up with former Greenery sales representative Jacco van Paasschen to establish a new fruit import company called Fruit Conneqt.
Meanwhile, The Greenery has named Ingmar van den Doel as its new retail director for the Netherlands, following Cindy van de Velde-Kremer's recent promotion to head of the group's international retail business.
This article was corrected on Friday 14 February to remove mention of previous employees of Hagé International who, although employeed by the company during the previous 18 months, had not departed as a direct result of the restructuring process.
