Greenyard wants to improve meat substitutes

Belgian fruit and vegetable processor Greenyard wants to market meat substitutes: “We are going to take a different approach”, because they have been “handled poorly”.

Higher margins

Greenyard, which supplies fruit and vegetables to major retailers such as Rewe and Tesco, wants to focus more on products with a higher profit margin. CEO Francis Kint told Belgian newspaper De Tijd that his company, which grew out of a mushroom farm but is now a major player in fresh, frozen and canned fruit and vegetables, is looking at new opportunities.

The somewhat surprising recent acquisitions of Italian ice cream maker Gigi and Belgian Crème de la Crème are a good illustration of that new strategy of diversifying into margin-rich products. “They do not yet deliver big sales, but ice cream can become a substantial part of our bottomline.”

“Meat substitutes have been handled poorly”

As the group is already active in frozen foods, the diversification entails few additional logistics costs. Kint also thinks that the ice creams also fit into Greenyard’s healthy focus: its Gigi brand products are plant-based, contain more than 60 % fruit and vegetables and are rich in fibre.

While the CEO does not plan any major acquisitions, he still wants to expand Greenyard’s business into new categories. The company is currently working on developing new meat substitutes, “but not in the way they already exist today.” The CEO believes that “classic meat substitutes have been handled in a bad way. They are over-processed products. We are going to do it differently”. He has high expectations, and as early as a few months from now, he promises to tell more about it.