Its founder is credited with introducing the first seedless grapes to European retailers, as well as the 500g grape punnet lid
Dutch company Olympic Fruit is 25 years old. Its founder, Thijs van den Heuvel, is credited for helping to introduce seedless grapes from Greece to the European market, launching the Thompson Seedless variety at Albert Heijn in 1992 and later in 1998 introducing the 500g grape punnet lid.
At the time, van den Heuvel was working for Hagé and later The Greenery. In 2001, he left The Greenery and founded Olympic Fruit.
Originally consisting of van den Heuvel and three colleagues working from a small office, the company soon moved to a larger building in Barendrect. Today it operates from a state-of-the-art facility incorporating advanced logistics solutions.
“The business took off,” van den Heuvel said. “Within five years we went from zero to €100 million in turnover and from an 80m2 office to 12,000m2.”
Van den Heuvel stepped back from the business in 2015 and today it is run by his son, Lennart van den Heuvel.
