About Royakkers Planten & Fruit

The story of Royakkers Planten & Fruit started more than 30 years ago in 1986, when Jan and his brother built a greenhouse in Kinrooi to grow strawberries. A few years later, they also started growing other fruit. In 1991, raspberries and blackberries were added to the range.

Jan and Gijs Royakkers: father and son in a healthy family business

A few years later, Gijs joined the team. Gijs is Jan’s son, so the passion for fruit growing was quickly ingrained from an early age. Today, Jan and Gijs Royakkers jointly manage the fruit farm.

"Gijs was already on his feet driving the tractor when he was 6 years old. Literally ‘on his feet', because he wasn’t tall enough to be able to steer otherwise. He drove so proudly over the fields at walking pace."
- Jan Royakkers

Driven by their passion for fruit growing, the Royakkers family was always keen to improve their fruit. For example, these days they grow strawberries on raised beds, and they designed their own machine for wrapping foil around the fruit crates. "The less time we have to use on that, the more time we can spend on our fruit."

Royakkers has also been growing and selling fruit plants for a number of years. Growers who want to grow their own fruit can obtain blackberry plants and raspberry plants from Royakkers.

Healthy growth

Royakkers has grown strongly as a company in recent years. However, Jan and Gijs want to take things at a steady pace. "Just like our fruit, we want to grow healthily. That means not expanding as much and as quickly as possible, but growing patiently in carefully considered steps, so that the quality is safeguarded."
Today, Royakkers grows more than 720 tonnes of fruit annually on more than 20 hectares of land. The company exports strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and fruit plants to almost every corner of Europe.

Ecological footprint

"As a fruit grower, it’s our duty to take look after nature as much as possible. After all, without a healthy climate we wouldn’t be able to do what we enjoy doing so much." With this mindset, Royakkers makes every effort to minimise the company's ecological footprint.

Find out about everything being done to help the climate here.