Central and East Europe the power of a multilocal company Across and both sides of the diving line between the old East and West Europe, as well as the exotic in far flung Central Asian markets in the East. The region is diverse, colourful, full of many different nationalities, cultures, languages and traditions all of which are reflected in the vegetable production and eating habits and consequently the vegetable seed markets. The founder of Enza Zaden, Jacob Mazereeuw, started doing business in Poland already in the 1970s. He travelled widely throughout the country visiting the entire greenhouse growing regions promoting Enza Zaden’s top tomato variety Suprella, which subsequently became a market leader. Suprella was quickly followed by Fontana, which also became a market leader and was very much in demand because of its extreme earliness. Today, Enza Zaden consolidates its business in Poland in its own sales subsidiary based in Warsaw, with an expert team of technical sales representatives all over the country. Russia is an important importer of fresh vegetables, but at the same time is investing in more high-tech controlled greenhouse production. In addition, the traditional crops such as onion, tomato, pickling cucumber and radish need better, improved varieties with higher resistances and yield. With a team of dedicated technical experts, Enza Zaden has built up its own selling organisation in Russia, Enza Semena, in just a very short time. Central Asia, and in particular Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, offer a wide diversity of crops and varieties. The climate swings strongly from cold winters to very hot summers, challenges for the successful production of quality vegetables. Both countries are traditional suppliers of off-season production vegetables for the main cities in Russia, a tradition that continues to this day. Greenhouse tomatoes and high sugar content melons are but two of the main crops for the markets. Enza Zaden | 65
