A pomegranate is not a SKU.

The Festival, the Fortuna, and a fifty-three-hectare year.

From the El-Sayed family farm, in their fourth season with us

Strawberries are the line on which we built the company. The El-Sayed brothers — Mostafa, Tarek, and their cousin Sameh — have grown them in Beheira since 1998. They went organic in 2018, the year before we signed our first contract with them. We pay for the GlobalG.A.P. audit; they pick by hand, in low light, into cooled flats that leave the field within ninety minutes.

Of every euro we earn at the Dutch wholesale price on a Beheira punnet, sixty-two cents goes back to the farm. The remaining thirty-eight cover shipping, certification, EU-side handling, and our margin of eight cents.

Form

Fresh, 250 g punnet · IQF 10 kg / 20 kg poly

Season

Fresh: Dec–Apr. IQF: year-round

Cert

EU Organic · GlobalG.A.P. IFA v6

MOQ

1 × 20ft reefer

The Wonderfuls of the El-Manfalouti family.

Three generations on twenty-eight hectares of orchard, since 1971

Assiut pomegranates have a colour you cannot find on a Spanish line — a deeper red, a denser aril, a thinner skin. The El-Manfaloutis have been on this land since the year of Aswan's high dam. Hala, the eldest daughter, runs the sorting shed. Her brother Kamel runs the cold store. Their father Bishoy is on the board of the Assiut growers' cooperative, with whom we negotiate the seasonal floor price.

We pack into 4 kg open-top crates and 1 kg vacuum arils for the fresh-cut programmes. Whole-fruit grade leaves Damietta on a Tuesday and clears Rotterdam in a week and a half.

Form

Fresh whole · 1 kg vac arils

Season

Sep–Dec (peak Oct–Nov)

Cert

EU Organic · GlobalG.A.P.

MOQ

1 × 40ft reefer

A red so deep it stains the wood.

From Hassanein & Sons — solar-dried hibiscus calyx, Aswan

Salwa Hassanein runs the packing shed at Kom Ombo, an hour north of Aswan. She is the eldest of four siblings; her brothers Tamer and Yousef farm. The youngest, Mariam, manages the export paperwork from a desk in Cairo. They cut Sudanese-strain hibiscus, dry it on raised racks above the Nile silt for ten to fourteen days depending on the wind, and sort it by colour before sacking.

We hold the BRCGS audit on the packing shed; the Hassaneins hold the farm-level GlobalG.A.P. We co-funded the new sorting tables in 2024. The fall harvest leaves Damietta in 20 kg polypropylene sacks for the European tea and beverage trade.

Form

Dried whole calyx · cut

Season

Year-round, harvest peak Nov–Jan

Cert

EU Organic

MOQ

1 pallet

The Keitts of the El-Badawi grove.

From the El-Badawi grove, near Lake Timsah

The El-Badawi family run thirty-one hectares of Keitt and Naomi mango on the eastern bank near Lake Timsah. Yasser El-Badawi inherited the grove in 2008 and went organic in stages over the following four years. He sells us his fourth- and fifth-pick fruit — the deep-shoulder, late-season Keitt with the high brix and the thin skin.

Mangoes leave by air to Amsterdam, thirty-six to forty-eight hours from grove to Schiphol. The fresh-cut programme is what Yasser is most proud of: it pays the picking crew a winter retainer that did not exist before we signed.

Form

Fresh whole, 4 kg open-top

Season

Jun–Sep (peak Jul–Aug)

Cert

EU Organic · GlobalG.A.P.

MOQ

2 pallets (air)

Seed potato — Spunta, Hermes, Lady Rosetta.

Van Rijn Seed Potato BV · pre-basic and Class A material

Hendrik van Rijn runs the family seed-potato business in the Veenkoloniën. We are his Egyptian dealer for organic conversion programmes — that is, growers in the Nile delta switching to certified-organic potato over three rotations. Pre-basic and Class A material travels in 25 kg jute, with full EU plant passport documentation and a Dutch NVWA inspector's signature on each lot.

Form

Tuber, pre-basic / Class A

Cert

EU plant passport

Pack

25 kg jute

MOQ

1 × 40ft

Drip tape, greenhouse film, climate units.

Greenhouse and irrigation inputs for organic conversion programmes

Drip-irrigation tape (Twente-made, 16 mm with embedded emitters at 20 cm or 30 cm spacing). Greenhouse film from an Eindhoven extruder, 200 µ UV-stabilised. Climate-control units from a Westland integrator. We package these for smallholder use — half-hectare and one-hectare kits, with installation training included in the freight invoice.

Form

Tape, film, units

Pack

3 000 m roll · 12 m × 50 m sheet

MOQ

1 × 20ft

Lead

4–6 weeks ex Rotterdam