Alpine Fresh says it has made a significant investment in ABB Growers, a Netherlands-based blueberry specialist.
This partnership unites two companies focused on sustainably and efficiently bringing the best berries from farm to market, says Alpine Fresh. By combining global sourcing, strong local networks and advanced technology, the grower, packer and marketer of fresh berries and other fresh fruits and vegetables says it is uniquely positioned.
“This partnership significantly expands our sourcing footprint, with growers across the Americas, Europe, North Africa, southern Africa and India,” says Flavio Collis, investments and business development manager with Alpine Fresh. “ABB has built a strong grower support network across these regions over 25 years, with extensive agronomic knowledge, strict quality protocols and efficient logistics. That infrastructure is already in place.”
The company connects growers across three continents to leading retailers through its state-of-the-art sorting and packing facility in Horst, Netherlands. Collis calls this facility “among the best in the industry,” noting that Alpine Fresh will actively leverage and learn from this technology.
The addition of Alpine Fresh’s multiberry portfolio will introduce access to exclusive and semi-exclusive premium varieties for European customers. This partnership allows European retailers to source a full berry program year-round through a single partner with access to premium variety programs providing added geographical diversity on a platform built for long-term partnerships.
“For our U.S. customers, that means more origins, more seasonal coverage and the ability to grow and commercialize our exclusive and semi-exclusive varieties across a much larger and already proven grower network,” Collis says. “When supply is tight in the U.S., we have more options to pull from. We believe that is the practical benefit.”
ABB Growers’ founder Fred Douven and Stefan Spanjaard, head of European operations for Alpine Fresh, will jointly lead the company as co-CEOs and plan to build a future centered on quality, reliability, scale and innovation.
“For U.S. category managers, the bottom line is that Alpine Fresh just became a bigger, more reliable, more year-round berry partner,” Collis says. “Same team, same service, more firepower behind it.”
