René Lijzenga - CEO, Ambi Pack
The use of dietary supplements is rapidly gaining popularity among consumers and their pets, who all want to live a healthy life. For co-producer and co-packer Ambi Pack, this was the perfect opportunity to recently invest in an ultramodern circular business premises and launch an ambitious international growth strategy.
René Lijzenga - CEO
According to CEO René Lijzenga, the dietary supplements market offers a wealth of opportunities for new, more efficient, and better products. Ambi Pack in Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht, part of the Naturacare Group, plays an important role in this development. Their expertise in developing, producing, and packaging dietary supplements for third parties gives them a leading position in the European market.
A fantastic building, everything under one roof, fully automated. Proud?
"Absolutely. We welcome customers there and proudly show them the building. A state-of-the-art factory that can handle larger projects and guarantee more quality. Foreign sales teams also come here with potential customers. This also attracts other business partners."
Who are your business partners?
"We mainly collaborate with large companies and serious players from the Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavia. The German market is huge and we already have several interesting customers and projects of considerable size, both in quantity and turnover. Moreover, there is still a world of potential to further develop our base. Dietary supplements are booming! It's the same in Scandinavia. The many opportunities in these markets were the reason for me to get involved."
Are there also plans to look outside Europe?
"We are already doing that. Our branch in France serves the North African market and our Italian colleagues also do business in the Middle East. We have agents in Dubai and regularly participate in trade fairs in the Far East."
What exciting projects are you currently working on?
"Our current focus is on raw materials. How can we make more responsible choices in this area? What is needed to make raw materials work more effectively for their intended purpose? What steps can we take to further green the packaging and operations? This falls under the full-service concept that we want to move towards with customers."
What unique selling propositions (USPs) differentiate you in the market?
"I always talk about unique buying reasons because it's about us understanding our customers' business. Only then can we accurately assess and better estimate what added value we can deliver. So it's not that we create a product that we push onto the market; we come up with a solution based on a need or problem. The fun part is that you actually see that we have the charm of a local player, but with the power of an international group."
Local charm and international power. How does this enable you to operate more effectively?
"As a customer, you deal with Ambi Pack, with professionals who have relatively long tenures and know what they are talking about, but also with a team that has the power and capabilities to offer a whole package from the international group. What we are working towards is to give each company in the group its own specialization. This way, we can provide more added value and expertise while also offering the entire package."
And then grow?
“Exactly. We have an international growth strategy. We see ourselves as a leading group of CDMOs, which requires a certain volume. The goal of our strategy is to double revenue within a four-year period.”
How do you plan to achieve this revenue doubling?
“What we aim for is to organize the four organizations within the Naturacare group in the same way. With the same approach, we can guarantee the same quality across the board. This also applies to sales and approaching customers. We want to present ourselves more as a collective and develop a sales strategy together.”
In the world of dietary supplements, innovation is a must. How have you arranged that?
“Absolutely, that's why we try to showcase a number of innovations to the market annually and highlight our capabilities. This serves as an incentive for customers to develop those new products with us.”
How does this work internally? Are you open to ideas from employees?
“Definitely. We encourage the involvement of our employees and colleagues as much as possible and are always open to ideas. And to criticism: that is of course just as valuable an idea. The more input, the better. It actually happens quite naturally, as things are informal here. Everyone can always drop by R&D or sales. Every idea is taken on board.”
You mentioned informality. What else can you say about the atmosphere and company culture?
“Well, we started as a family business 27 years ago. That close-knit culture of involvement and informal interaction has remained, despite the fact that we have been part of a large international group since 2021. Everyone pops in on each other and pulls together when needed.”
If someone wants to develop personally, are there opportunities for that?
“If you're talking about personal development, then there are definitely opportunities. To enhance competencies, but also to work for one of the other markets or foreign companies. The international opportunities and positive market outlook make working with us even more exciting.”
Ready to take that next step? Contact us.
Photographer: John Dijkgraaf
[Published: July 2024]
