International
The Meijer Potato headquarters are in Rilland, the Netherlands. Our people are active at various locations in the Netherlands, France, U.K., Poland, Turkey and Spain. We work together with customers and partners worldwide and sell propagating material and licences of our varieties in 60 countries.
The R&D centre for all the potato breeding activities is in Rilland, with key selection fields in the Netherlands, Spain and the United States. In future, we will be further expanding our R&D activities to cover more climate zones.
Meijer Potato develops and markets its own potato varieties. Our varieties are – depending on the market – sold under licence or as propagating material. Propagating material is produced on contract by seed potato growers. In Turkey, we produce under our own management to be able to guarantee the quality.
Meijer Potato in figures
| Number of countries with employees | 6 |
| Branches, including participation | 6 |
| Potato varieties in portfolio | 21 |
| Countries in which our varieties are available | 60 |
| Total number of permanent staff | 85 |
| Number of years active in the market | >100 |
| Number of propagators | >300 |
| % of net profit spent on R&D | >16% |
| % of total turnover outside the Netherlands | >85% |
“Focus – that means having the courage to say no”.
- Johan van der Stee
Core activities and cooperation
One important core value at Meijer Potato is focus. This is reflected in our select portfolio of high value potato varieties. As an organization, we focus on our core activities: breeding and marketing potatoes. For the activities conducted outside of this focus area we work with partners. We help and strengthen each other when it comes to knowledge, creativity and execution.
Marketing partners
Meijer Potato works together with various parties in the potato chain to be in a better position to respond to market demands. This ensures a market-orientated breeding programme and sales. An example of our marketing partnership is Jazzy – one of our table potato varieties. With Jazzy, market orientation and cooperation with chain parties come together for: washing, cooking, enjoyment. A potato with added value for the consumer who values convenience, speed and taste.
Research partners
Meijer Potato works together with research institutes and universities. Wageningen University & Research has always been an important research partner, just as the University of Amsterdam and the University of Utrecht have been. During and following the completion of the OPZuid subsidy project, Meijer Potato also fostered ties with a number of partners such as Keygene, 3BM and Aurea.
Business supporting partners
Not only in its research, but also outside of this field, Meijer Potato has chosen to outsource the business outside of its core activities, or bring it in on a flexible basis. This happens with all sorts of tasks, and enables Meijer Potato to concentrate on the breeding and marketing of potato varieties. In this way, we consciously bring focus to our activities.