Joost van Ruijven

Joost is proud to have developed more than 100 products with the team in 40 years of Beekenkamp Packaging.

Op the early morning of November 30, I am cheerfully welcomed by Joost van Ruijven. After we have taken our seats in the meeting room, he starts enthusiastically talking about his job as account manager at Beekenkamp Verpakkingen.

It is May 2006, Joost starts in the Customer Service department of Beekenkamp Packaging. After finishing his MBO business administration, he decides to start his first full-time job. 16 years later and after having progressed several times, he still enjoys working at Beekenkamp Verpakkingen. The decision he made at ²³, he later describes as “one of the best choices of my life.”

Joost talks about how his work at Beekenkamp has made him who he is today. That he came in as a quiet, shy boy 16 years ago seems a thing of the past. “A commercial job turned out to suit me so well that I totally blossomed. Partly because of this, a few years later I got the chance to advance to the field, as a salesman.” Where he initially started with only customers in the South of the Netherlands, his territory has grown over the years to include customers throughout Europe, especially in the German-speaking areas.

Over the years, Joost has seen the entire Group grow and professionalize into the company it is today. “When I started here, we worked with fax and mail, now almost everything goes digital. By now Beekenkamp Group has grown into a multi-million dollar company. The nice thing is that the Packaging team is small, we are very close and I still work with many of the same people as 16 years ago.”

At Packaging in the office, no day is the same. The team is small and the lines are short. Joost explains, “Because the team is so small, I do a lot more than just sell our products. When a trade show arrives, we sit down with the whole team to make it a success. Everyone can give their opinion and is involved in everything, which makes the work very diverse.”

So what does his day look like when he is not in the office? Then he is mainly on the road to customers. These are also often abroad, where he is always welcomed with open arms. “Foreign companies look up to the horticultural knowledge from the Netherlands, they are incredibly interested, which always makes me feel very welcome.”

Its customer base is strongly horticulture-oriented, yet very diverse. From the soft fruit sector to vegetable growers and the flower bulb industry, Beekenkamp Verpakkingen listens to the customer and can develop a customized tray, bin or crate for any company. A new sector the company is moving into is the insect industry. In cooperation with an insect breeder, a tray was developed for the professional rearing of insects. “As Beekenkamp Packaging, this gives us the opportunity to step into a new market, which is enormously challenging and fun. This is because it brings me into contact with completely different people and ways of thinking. I learn an awful lot from this, and I can eventually apply this knowledge again in other sectors.”

Every year, the company comes up with a number of innovations in both new and existing markets. For example, it recently developed a strawberry tray that allows growers to grow their strawberry plants in a new, innovative way. But the companies under Beekenkamp Group are also good customers. For example, they developed the sustainable BKX trays for Beekenkamp Plants Ornamentals, for Deliflor Chrysanthemums the sliding cutting tray and for Beekenkamp Plants Vegetables the nursery plant trays in which both fruit and field vegetables are transported. “Affinity with the products we have anyway. It’s just a walk to the neighbors and we can start,” Joost says with a laugh.

What Joost likes most about his job is scoring a new order. “It gives me a kick,” he says, “and then working with the whole team to arrange the best for that client. I may be the liaison between client and office, but we really do it together. It’s a super fun challenge to keep innovating in an existing market, it’s addictive.”

Next year Beekenkamp Verpakkingen will celebrate its 40th anniversary. And Joost is proud of that, “That I have been part of it for so many years and have been able to serve so many sectors with customized sustainable products, you can’t help but be proud of that. By now I do feel like a real Beekenkamper, but you quickly get that feeling here. And before you know it you are 16 years further” he says laughing.

So Joost will be fine for the time being at Beekenkamp Packaging, maybe it’s even meant to be. It couldn’t be otherwise if you come from the same year of birth as the company itself. 😉

The sales team of Beekenkamp packaging is looking for reinforcement! We are looking for a Junior Account Manager. Curious what the vacancy contains? Check out the vacancy here!