Rijk Zwaan: Sharing a healthy future
“Rijk Zwaan has a very strong company culture. When we hire new recruits, we always look very closely at the fit at Rijk Zwaan. We ask a lot of personal questions. We also thoroughly explore whether the job sufficiently fits the candidate’s talents and ambitions. Within Rijk Zwaan, we give each other space to develop ourselves and, as a result, the company. We prefer to have hierarchical echelons minimalised in order to stimulate entrepreneurship. We treat each other with respect and openness; we challenge each other on facts and content.”
About Rijk Zwaan
As the management of Rijk Zwaan, we would like to start by stating the company’s primary objective: to offer our employees an enjoyable and long-term job with attractive pay and conditions.
This primary objective forms the basis from which our colleagues – in close collaboration with our partners – contribute to a healthy future.
An enjoyable job requires a pleasant and inspiring working atmosphere, which is why we feel that our company culture is so very important. The key elements of the Rijk Zwaan culture are as follows:
- Reliability
- An entrepreneurial spirit, with plenty of room for creativity and innovation
- Business ethics of the highest order
- A pleasant atmosphere, achieved in particular by openness and honesty, respect for others, team spirit and high moral standards and values.
The trust that we place in our employees is rewarded with loyalty, high motivation, enormous dedication and close involvement, which in turn offers numerous benefits to our customers, suppliers, government authorities and other business partners. They can count on a reliable partner, top-quality products and a high level of service.
Getting the best out of nature
Rijk Zwaan is positioned right at the start of the food chain: our varieties feature increasingly better combinations of desired traits. We apply state-of-the-art techniques to the rich genetic diversity nature offers us. Within a global network of leading research institutes and universities, we are constantly working to further improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the breeding process.
This ensures that we are always able to respond to ever-changing market demands and offer added value to plant nurseries, growers, retailers and consumers. By exchanging ideas with one another, not only about cultivation but also about sales, we help our growing partners to get the best out of our varieties. In this way, together, we can make vegetables tastier, more appealing, easier to prepare and even more healthy.
At the heart of society
With our subsidiary Rijk Zwaan Afrisem, through which we are developing high-quality varieties specifically for the local African market, and our social salad network Lovemysalad.com, with which we aim to stimulate global vegetable consumption, we have broadened the reach of our activities from the vegetable sector alone to society as a whole.
Rijk Zwaan is growing rapidly, but so too is the world’s population. Growth presents both opportunities and challenges. With our company culture, our advanced R&D techniques and our numerous long-term collaborative partnerships as the firm foundation, we are ready to make our contribution to a healthier future for everyone.