Kevin Doran

Kevin Doran joined Houweling's in October 2014

North American greenhouse vegetable company Houweling’s has named chief operating officer Kevin Doran as its new president.

Doran joined Houweling’s Group of Companies in late 2014, having spent more than six years as managing director of Dutch group The Greenery's UK business, and has apparently been instrumental in helping it to become a vertically integrated grower and direct-to-market business.

Chief executive Casey Houweling said the choice was an obvious one when it came to positioning the business for future success.

“Kevin’s impact in a little over a year at Houweling’s, his background as managing director of Greenery UK and a number of other The Greenery business units in Europe, made him the right person to take the reins as president.

“Additionally it enables me to focus on areas of the business I am most passionate about: the growing, and continued development and adoption of innovative, sustainable technologies.”

Commenting on his new role, which he will carry out in addition to his existing responsibilities, Doran noted: “I firmly believed when joining Houweling’s last year that we had a strong foundation to build on in achieving our objective to elevate the company’s retail partnerships, by becoming a supplier of choice, in addition to maintaining our status as a world-class grower.”

He added: “I am proud of what our team has accomplished since I joined the business and thankful for the opportunity to continue to lead, empower our management group, and position the business for continued success.”

Houweling’s Group has operations in the US and Canada, producing tomatoes and cucumbers on over 80ha of greenhouse farms.