A leading Dutch newspaper, the ‘Financieele Dagblad’ has awarded its prestigious ‘New Champions’ prize to Koppert Biological Systems. The prize is awarded to fast growing innovators who show entrepreneurship, invest in research and fulfil an important social role.
The national newspaper ran a series on nine enterprising ‘New Champions’ in the Netherlands over the past few weeks and the jury was unanimous in making KBS their champion for 2016 last Friday. Hightech technology company, Demcom, took second place, and portal software specialist, Backbase, third.
In the newspaper’s interview with Koppert’s Financial Director, Robert Pathuis, and other staff members Robert said; ‘ the best ideas come from the staff themselves.’ Jury member, Professor Justin Jansen, Corporate Entrepreneurship expert at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, said; ‘Koppert is a remarkable growth company which has contributed to finding solutions to the world’s food production problems for the last 50 years.’
The newspaper explained that Koppert’s crop teams made it possible for the company to be flexible, customer oriented and able to respond more rapidly than the bigger chemical companies. ‘It helps that Koppert is a family company with a long-term vision. ‘We are different to companies that are controlled by shareholders and we are freer when it comes to managing our research projects,’ Robert explained in the newspaper article.
Professor Jansen reported that he was happy with the jury’s choice. ‘Koppert is a fine business. Many of the company’s initiatives for innovations come from its own staff, both for new products and process improvements.’ In the article, Koppert’s Business Intelligence Manager, Martin Koppert added; ‘the people who work here want to make a contribution to our world. We have ex-Monsanto employees on our staff too. We like to think that we have a ‘sexy’ company!’