My name is Bjorn van Megen.
I'm 28 years old and I live in Horst (NL).
Since January 1st, I've been the
Commercial Manager at EuroTree.
I'm responsible for the day-to-day
management of the commercial sales team.
A tree nursery is a diverse business.
We mainly produce hedging plants, solidarity shrubs and topiary.
That includes hardy plants.
We ship them to gardening centres
and landscapers all across Europe.
So, we produce container plants and root ball plants for customers in the whole of Europe.
We started out as a small boxwood nursery
with a limited variety of hedge plants,
and now we produce over 500 different varieties
of different sizes, as you can see.
I'm proud to work at EuroTree, and I'm proud to be in this position.
For me, this started as a small side job when I was still a student and it has grown into this wonderful job.
I'm very proud of my progress!
But I am also very proud of the progress our company
has made over the years.
We now have approximately 40 people
employed and the team is still growing.
I really like the fact that we're working
with such a wonderful, green product.
Plants add value to our surroundings.
Everyone keeps talking about sustainability and
making the world a greener place,
and that's exactly what's at the core of our business!
I can see it come to life in our nursery,
every single day.
That's what I really enjoy about this product...
I'm here, between the plants. It's a natural thing
that impacts society in a positive way.
I know that the cooperation between Kekkilä-BVB,
still BVB Substrates at that point,
and EuroTree has been flourishing for over 20 years.
During that time we have been expanding
our business to over 500 species.
We're now doing over 100 hectares of open soil production,
5 hectares of container fields,
and 4 hectares of greenhouses.
During all of that growth, Kekkilä-BVB has been our supplier.
So, that means we have been growing
together and supporting each other.
We process vast amounts of substrate to grow all of our plants.
We've been working on a way to make our potting process as efficient as possible.
We've optimised the way our supplies are delivered,
but also the potting process itself.
We started out using big bags and big bales,
but now, due to the large amounts of substrate that we need,
so, we've created a bunker for bulk deliveries.
That's where Kekkilä-BVB unloads the trucks.
That way we avoid using packaging materials
and additional manual work.
The substrate is then, automatically, taken to our potting line.
We were able to realise all of this together with Kekkilä-BVB.
But the main thing about our relationship is reliability.
It's important to know that you've got each other's support and to know that your partner will help you grow.
We share knowledge and skills and
add value to each other's business.