Meet the team | Joep van Koevorden

Meet our colleague Joep, busy preparing the shipments for the festive month and willing to give us a short insight in his daily business.

Joep van Koevorden, Product Manager specialized in tropical fruits has been working at Eosta for one year now.  The Eosta experience has been started in October 2022, travelling directly to Fruit Attraction in Madrid to meet growers and customers. Tropicals are available during the whole year but with the festive month around the corner,  his desk is full of pitahaya, mango, cranberries and more. 

Though ‘zuurkool’ is his favorite winter meal, it is only complete with slices of fresh organic pineapple on top. The sweet pineapple from Nature & More grower Andres is the most delicious (code 763)

Joep adores the Edward mango from our grower Joe from Ecuador and calls it the most the finest variety, the queen of the mango. I am lucky that I am able to find the most beautiful products at the best growers all over the world, provide the customer with those products from all over the world. 

At Eosta we only have sustainable organic fruits in the assortment. According to Joep you only work with passionate growers, striving for their sustainability goals on both people and planet. It is nice to keep working on the close relationship with those and looking for potentional new growers. It is obvious, I am proud that I can do my job. Nice people and a good team spirit, working together on great projects. Eosta is, has always been and will always be a forward-thinking company with a clear mission and vision. 

When we asked Joep about a great memory at Eosta, it is without any doubt the Living Wage project. The handing over of the 2nd cash cheque in person, to the employees of our grower Fruiteq was another milestone in the Living Wage project. In 2020, Eosta launched mangos from Burkina Faso with a Living Wage-inclusive price. The price includes 2 cents per kilogram for the Living Wage project, to create a living income for workers’ families. The workers can get a microcredit in order to make establish their own micro enterprise and showed their results from the first year. This is very useful as the mango season only lasts a couple of months and by starting their own business, they earn their income for the rest of the year.   

A Living Wage is defined as a wage that supports a decent standard of living for the worker and her or his family. This includes basis needs like food, clothing and decent housing, but also education, healthcare, and money to save for unexpected life events. A Living Wage is not the same as a minimum wage, because in many countries the legal minimum is much lower than a Living Wage. Learn more and join us: www.livingwage.eu

Joep would like to introduce Gregory, accountmanager France, in the next newsletter. 
Thanks for your time Joep!

Curious to see the Tropical Festive assortment? Click here