Interview Rabobank Food Forward
'Believe in yourself and take your chances as an entrepreneur'
"There are so many great ideas that live in the minds of all food entrepreneurs in this country. The only question is: do they currently see the possibilities to realize them", says Anna van der Bijl, project manager Food & Agri at Rabobank. Van der Bijl is the driving force behind Rabo Food Forward for the bank. On Tuesday (October 4), the next step was taken at the Floriade in Almere with the launch of the Food Forward Membership, a network that should become a kind of counter to connect players in the field of future-proof food solutions.
"What I hope to achieve with the Food Forward Membership is that food entrepreneurs see those possibilities. That there is a network where they can post their questions, where they can share what they are currently encountering and ask their concrete request for help. I think that is the key when you look at the food transition," said Van der Bijl in a double interview with Joris Lohman, co-founder of Food Hub with whom the bank is doing the Rabo Food Forward project, and now also the Membership.
An important reason for Rabobank to start working with the agency three years ago was the program that Food Hub was already running: The New Farmer Family. In this, agricultural entrepreneurs are guided in a support program in which they are offered a number of steps with external experts. Lohman: "Often in a period when they are busy with a company takeover, when they are going to make some final choices about the future of the company." According to Lohman, that initiative is different from others. "There were already several programs aimed at business development in farming, but we did that with people from outside the agricultural sector. I don't have an agricultural background myself, so I'm not technical in how to grow, either. but precisely in the area of revenue model: what broadening or other possibilities are there? orange grouse from Johan Leenders (a sustainable chicken farm) or The New Milkman that markets soy milk. They have really set up very different business models."
There have now been fourteen Food Forward editions, thirteen regional and a short chain edition. In the photo above this article, participants listen to Boy Griffioen during a visit to the organic dairy farm and cheese factory De Groene Griffioen in Weesp during one of the regional editions.
According to Van der Bijl, three years of Rabo Food Forward has resulted in 'a lot of unexpected encounters'. As an example she gives lupine grower André Jurrius van Eco farm De Lingehof who had been growing lupine for years and was unable to get it off the ground profitably. During the Food Forward track in Gelderland he met Marieke Laméris who has a marketing background. She was amazed that no one eats lupine and thought: there must be another way and used her skills to help the grower further. This is how a cooperative of various growers in the Netherlands has arisen: Nice Lupine which is now setting up an entire product line for caterers. Van der Bijl is enthusiastic about it: "That such a meeting leads to something like this, to also be able to play a role in the protein transition and thus be able to create sustainable soil management and perhaps a little revenue model, yes, that's fantastic."
Van der Bijl also sees entrepreneurs discover what they stand for. "Where something has been bubbling for a long time of which they think: this should also be possible to do differently and then actually realize by going through an intensive process for five months: this is what I stand for and this is my mission, this is what I have a partner for seek to take me further." An example of this are the young entrepreneurs Hilly Lautenbach and Elise Brugman van Circle of Food who had started from a graduation project to market fungus paste from residual flows. They were helped to market a product for that and with Food Forward they wanted to scale that up. "Then they discovered that it is not that simple," says Van der Bijl. "Because are all entrepreneurs open to doing something with residual flows, do they even know that they have them? But also the search: are we the right people to put these products on the market or do we want to help others to to do that." On October 4, they will launch a development environment, not only for those products, but also for potential young entrepreneurs who are interested in circular entrepreneurship. That's nice too. That they have grown as entrepreneurs and have discovered what their ambitions are and that you help them to fully put their company on the map."
Anna van der Bijl
Project manager van der Bijl is also a farmer. At home in the Noordoostpolder she and her husband have a common arable farm, generally with the usual crops. In the past year they also started experimenting with growing and marketing the protein crop chickpeas. This could actually have been such a project for Food Forward. "The harvest was successful, we are now looking at what that has done to the soil and what it does to the subsequent crop. We are organizing sales. In the short chain, we do manage to make it profitable. "We would sell it to the well-known canning players, then it wouldn't be possible. But if we look at the short chain and especially the catering industry, they want to buy this at a good price with a good story."
Rabobank is the largest financier of Dutch agriculture, such as Boerenbusiness previously wrote, the financing policy tightened. The bank is looking critically at the opportunities for the future in terms of expansion and company takeovers. This does not mean that financing is completely on hold. Despite all the uncertainty, Rabobank's Food & Agri loan portfolio worldwide grew by 10% last year to €113,2 billion. Despite the great uncertainty, according to Van der Bijl, the bank will continue to talk, even if financing is not immediately possible. "That is the conversation that we enter into with customers: what does that mean, what is the key. Is that broadening your activities, how should you look at it. There is simply a lot of uncertainty, which makes It's quite difficult for everyone in this whole food and agri system to look ahead."
George Lohman
Lohman adds: "I know those stories: this farmer is organic, he went to Rabobank and he did not want to finance it. I often find that a simple storyline, regardless of whether organic is good or not. A bank loan is simply not aimed at setting up something new, whether you are organic or want to do something else. The instruments are simply not for that, and that is not because Rabobank or other banks do not want that, but because the system is not set up that way. so, equally critical of banks, that this naturally also requires a new way of thinking and not all account managers or regional offices can easily think: banking is not possible, but what is possible? that there is stacking. A risk has to be removed, you could perhaps do that partly with a subsidy or a regional fund or crowdfunding - we are also in talks with Food Hub with CrowdAboutNow, among others. The parties that want to start up transition funds, but there are not yet there. So the piece of risk must also be placed elsewhere and you could do that in combination with a bank loan, perhaps even with several banks. I know a nice organic company in Almere that has covered a part of the risk with various parties. Rabobank can then participate for the banking part. That requires more thinking and doing your best."
Need for perspective
According to van der Bijl, agricultural entrepreneurs first and foremost need perspective when it comes to the agricultural transition. "A kind of crisis has now arisen. A goal has been communicated, but no clear policy yet. Moreover, the revenue model of the agricultural sector has been under pressure for much longer. If I talk from my arable role for a moment, then as an entrepreneur you are always looking for for opportunities to arrive at a good revenue model.And that is the conversation you also enter into with your account manager: what opportunities do you see?How is the organic market at the moment, what about making my properties more sustainable? Those are the conversations you actually have on a continuous basis to see what possibilities there are to be able to continue profitably with your company, with everything that is happening in the world. is an enormous amount of knowledge of different sectors, different solutions. That's just really nice that you always have the opportunity to spar about that. That really doesn't mean that everything is to be financed. That's a utopia. But it does mean that as a customer you see opportunities and that is what is important now. And I hope that what the government is currently struggling with, that perspective will also emerge from that. I think the most important thing is to keep listening to each other. There is not one magic word to solve this."
If money were released from the nitrogen fund to stimulate sustainability, Food Forward would be happy to guide entrepreneurs towards this, says Van der Bijl. "I would really like it if we could guide entrepreneurs who are walking around with a solution to that pot. The Food Forward Membership is not only there from Rabo, we are now initiating it, but in the end it would of course be fantastic if it was more widely supported and that all kinds of entrepreneurial initiatives find their way to a fund, whether it is provincial or national money. There are often many more things possible than you know as an entrepreneur."
Participation in the Food Forward Membership is free. Farmers and other food entrepreneurs who want to participate do not need to have concrete plans yet. "No, they can also mainly get inspiration from it," says van der Bijl. "The way I see it, it's a kind of beehive in which different bees come to get something, bring something and fly out again. I think that's what will make the sector better. That's not just that one innovative entrepreneur who stands up, but the fact that we can share things like that with each other. And that we can perhaps make things scalable so that it is also accessible to other entrepreneurs. It offers inspiration and guidance. It would be my ambition when it comes to the Food Forward Membership, both from my Rabo heart as my farmer's heart. And the involvement of the entire chain is also important to me, it's not just the farmer."
If Van der Bijl could give other agricultural entrepreneurs something in the context of the agricultural transition, it would be: "Believe in yourself. Whatever you encounter, enter into a conversation with each other. Believe in it, seize your opportunities or discover where your ambitions are. lying down. I think that's the key."
Linda van Eekeres
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