“My opinion about the horticulture rotated with a hundred and eighty degrees”
“How enthusiastic I was about the horticulture three months ago? Not much to be honest.” Speaking is Maarten Zwinkels, trainee at Beekenkamp. “I live in a region called ‘Westland’, where the horticulture is very big. My father has his own vegetable company and my uncle works in ornamentals. Despite my background, the horticulture never attracted me. After two months of working at Beekenkamp my opinion completely rotated with a hundred and eighty degrees.
Internship at Beekenkamp
“In the beginning of this year I started my education ‘Commercial Economics’ in Rotterdam. The reason I chose for this education was the focus on big international companies and in my eyes the horticulture companies in Westland didn’t fit in that category. After a few fun and interesting months I had to search for an internship for the last five weeks of my first year. With a little help from my network I ended up at Beekenkamp on the marketing department. The internship period matched perfectly with the Flower Trials, for Beekenkamp the biggest and most important internal exhibition for international clients. During my internship period I needed to focus completely on this exhibition. After a few weeks I discovered that the horticulture is much more than just growing and selling of vegetables and ornamentals! The horticulture is a really big branch which is growing rapidly. The competition is really high and marketing could be the determining factor. This was a real eye-opener to me. I worked side by side with the marketing department and after a good preparation and the performance in the end, we finished the exhibition with a record amount of visitors.”
Enthusiasm from both sides
“Directly after the FlowerTrials my internship was finished, but both my internship supervisor as myself were very enthusiastic about the past period and therefore I’m now able to work longer at Beekenkamp. So at the moment, I am working with a lot of enthusiasm in the horticulture branch, which I didn’t expect in advance!”