By Roel Dreve

Joep Sneeboer is the Dutch coordinator for Banken in Poland. His mission is to structure Polish companies according to the Dutch model. “The Polish are hard workers, but Polish companies often lack structure and organisation, which is where I try to help them.” Sneeboer explains how it all started: “We started here as a trading company in September 2002. Growers were suspicious at first. We had to convince them of our good intentions, show them that we hadn’t come to ‘take them over’, but that we just wanted to establish our own place in the market. For us it was important to create loyalty among suppliers.”

Sneeboer also tried to find new markets for Banken in Russia and Hungary. “We quickly realized that Poland showed the best growth opportunities, and had a significant potential for professionalism. But we could not close our eyes to the fact that Polish growers were already trading with Western Europe through their lorries.” Banken carefully communicated this with its Dutch suppliers says Sneeboer. “The message was that the Polish mushrooms would come anyhow and that the best situation for everyone would be for us to assist them in their own country.”

Organisation

We first attempted to set up a joint venture with a Polish production company, but this met with varying success. And where product quality was concerned there were some specifically significant variations. “It all went wrong due to a lack of trust; the Polish partner wanted to keep control of everything. So we decided to set up a small team with Damian Gozelniak, the present managing director Banken Polska, to serve the Polish market and, to a lesser extent, the Czech and Northern German markets.”

When recruiting staff for the site, Sneeboer noticed that many people were highly qualified. “There are a remarkable number of engineers among them. In addition, the employees work really hard and they tend to listen to the management more than workers in Western countries do.” One disadvantage he has noticed is that the Polish workers have to get used to thinking for themselves and to taking the initiative.

The company now employs a staff of some twelve people, with the Managing Director being responsible for sales and for the contacts with the growers. The vehicle fleet now consists of two lorries and six vans and many growers supply their products themselves.

Suppliers and sales

Supplying to Banken has certain advantages for Polish growers. “They get a good, fixed price and a guaranteed sale. They now deliver to a strong European partner, whereas they formerly had to transport their mushrooms to the wholesale markets themselves. And at the end of the day they were often forced to sell the mushrooms for poor prices.” In the past all mushrooms in this area were supplied to industrial processors.

A large group of growers now supplies the trading company. About ten of them have obtained Eurep-GAP certification. The product delivered is a firm mushroom of good quality.

How about the supply forecast? To what extent can the trader rely on supplies?

“In the beginning we often heard; ‘we can’t deliver the 200 boxes today, but we will ‘tomorrow’’. And we continue to plan for more than we really need. This enables us to supply different qualities to different markets.”

Banken Polska trades some 100 tons a week, 80 % of which is intended for the Polish domestic market. “We basically deliver to three types of customer; retailers, the catering business and wholesale markets.” The company offers a wide range of packaging formats; 125, 250, 500 or 800 grams, 3 kilos, and baskets of 1.5 kilos for the domestic market.

Growth

A new Banken branch is currently being built in Niepruszewie near Poznan, close to the new motorway that is going to be opened between Warsaw and Frankfurt a.d. Oder in 2005. Sneeboer is happy with this new, more central location. The company is working hard to obtain certification for the new premises. “This location will comply with all modern requirements, and it will have 1200 square metres of cooling capacity and be fully ready for HACCP”, he remarks enthusiastically.

The current staff would like to relocate to the new location together with the company and Sneeboer thinks that this is a clear indication of the company's success. The growers who are currently supplying their products to Banken, which has more than doubled its capacity, are growing along with them and are now working on expansion themselves.

In short, Banken Polska is trying to create a stable European mushroom supply market, together with its Polish growers.

Banken Polska is listed in our links section >