Local engagement

Sporting activities

Because we are strong advocates of a healthy lifestyle as the basis for a healthy future, we often choose to sponsor sport-related events. In the Netherlands we are focused on local activities, young people and recreational sport. Our international subsidiaries also often choose to channel their sponsorship towards local sporting events for children or families.

School pupils

At Rijk Zwaan, we also share knowledge about healthy vegetables – including how they are grown and cooked – with school pupils. Rijk Zwaan employees visit their children’s schools to give talks about vegetables, for example, and some school children in Hungary even attend biology lessons at Rijk Zwaan’s facility. Furthermore, we organise cookery lessons for children around the world through our consumer platform called Love my Salad. We are also a member of the Dutch Food Education Platform (Voedseleducatie Platform) in which we work together with government, industry, science, education and civil society to develop objective education on food and nutrition for children.

Each year, all primary schools in the Netherlands have the chance to order a packet of Rijk Zwaan seeds to plant in their school garden, and many of our subsidiaries donate seeds to local community gardens or school gardens.

Food banks

We donate vegetables from our trials and demos to food banks or other organisations that hand out food to disadvantaged families. In Mexico, for example, our vegetables are passed on to an organisation that provides healthy school meals. 

Employee initiatives

We are happy to let our employees shape our sponsorship activities by supporting initiatives that are close to their hearts.