Vegebe, evolved via frozen vegetables into the voice of the entire Belgian fruit and vegetable processing industry.
It was the Americans who first looked into the method of preserving using fast freezing that went to the core of the food. Bacteria and other living organisms that live in food and cause rotting are not killed by the process but are brought to a standstill, literally 'frozen’.
Belgium was first introduced to this freezing technique when the Germans built a number of deepfreeze units for fruit and vegetables during WWII. However it took until the nineteen fifties until the first Belgian frozen products turned up. The great expansion occurred ten years later in our country stimulated by a few large brands and with the cooperation of the growing supermarket chains. Soon there was a core of family frozen food companies in the Belgian vegetable region, South-West Flanders, most of which are concentrated in the region of Roeselare. The story starts in 1965 with the first company that started to produce frozen vegetables. Since then the number of frozen vegetable companies has increased to 12. Together they are responsible for over a quarter of the European production of frozen vegetables. All these companies are characterised by a family structure that forms the basis of their establishment and a strong tie with agriculture. After all, the sector evolved from the agricultural sector and the vegetable wholesale trade.
The greater part of the supply of raw materials for the frozen vegetable sector is guaranteed by contract farming. The rest is purchased through the specialised wholesale sector. Peas, beans and carrots constitute the lion’s share of the production. In addition, cauliflower, spinach and Brussels sprouts are also important. Every year, the total production of frozen vegetables amounts to almost 800,000 tons.
The enormous expansion of the sector was initially made possible by the increasing consumer demand for refinement and variation in his eating pattern. What is more: the desire to invest of the (primarily family) businesses and the availability of raw materials naturally also played an important role.
The realisation of a European internal market with 27 member states and the trade agreements with third countries are enormously important for this sector, after all 90% of the production is destined for export.
In 1980 the individual companies join forces in the Federation of Vegetable-Processing Companies (Verbond van Groenteverwerkende Bedrijven - Vegebe). Seventeen years later the organisation was joined by VIGEX, the federation of the wholesalers in fruit and vegetables and the secretariat moved from Roeselare to Brussels.
At the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century, Vegebe moved to Lokeren, where together with Belgapom, the Belgian association for the potato trade and processing, and Fresh Trade Belgium, the importers and exporters of fresh fruit and vegetables, the secretariat activities were housed in a joint FVPhouse. But the federation’s registered office did remain in Brussels.
In the meantime the vegetable preserving companies also joined Vegebe in 2000. The preservation of food in glass pots and tin cans after sterilisation stems from a French invention at the beginning of the 19th century, that was further developed above for military purposes.
The preservation technique increased the shelf life of food, including vegetables, and increased availability during the entire year. Just like frozen vegetables, the preserve sector can put the vegetables into the preservation process at the height of their freshness. After all, it is well known that vegetables fresh from the garden quickly lose their vitamins and nutritional value.
This industry with its rich tradition in (West) Flanders, with Marie Thumas as its flagship, had to restructure in the nineteen eighties. In West Flanders their place was taken by the new frozen vegetable sector. Even today the vegetable preserve sector remains active in the Kempen and Limburg, where new products are also developed in addition to the traditional vegetable preserves.
Since 2008 the fruit and vegetable cutting plants have also joined Vegebe. This still very young sector consists predominantly of family SMEs with agricultural roots, who offer a reply to consumer demand for fresh convenience products. For the cutting plants, that work with a shorter retention period of their end product, it is the domestic market that is above all important. Convenience is the buzz word for both the retail and catering sector for this young product, which is on the up and up.
