SV Urk in the fishing industry
The Visserijnieuws covered the unique bond between SV Urk and the seafood industry in its Fish Trade and Processing & Seafood Expo special. Read the article below:
URK – Pisces are competing at the top of amateur soccer. Think Spakenburg (semifinalist in the KNVB Cup tournament), Katwijk (last year’s champion, much to the delight of main sponsor Parlevliet & Van der Plas), Scheveningen and Urk. Volendam plays on the highest stage in both the pros and the Saturday amateurs.
Urk’s first team takes the crown when it comes to an executive relationship with fish. As many as ten selection players – all from SV Urk’s own youth training program – work in the fishing industry. Assistant coach Henri Romkes long ago was the only person to combine his soccer career in Urk’s first selection with his work as a fisherman at sea. In the photo, from left to right: Jelle de Boer, Iede den Dulk, Iede Nentjes, Rik de Boer, Johannes Schrijver, Pieter Brands, Lucas Nagel, Bennie Dunnink, Riekelt Jan Brands, Henri Romkes and Klaas Kramer.
Bennie Dunnink (captain)
Age: 28
Central defender, 223 games
Company: Visco
Function: logistics planner
Visco is a catering supplier that supplies customers in the Netherlands and Belgium daily with 33 vans on the road. Main products are salmon and tuna, as well as all the ingredients needed for sushi.
Dunnink trained as a transportation planner at the Urk Fisheries School and continued working at Visco after his apprenticeship 10 years ago.
Riekelt Jan Brands (vice captain)
Age: 28
Central defender, 223 games
Company: Visco
Function: logistics planner
Seafood Connection is a global player in the frozen food market. In fact, Seafood Connection operates as the European sales office of Japanese parent company Maruha Nichiro Group. Fish products are imported worldwide; exports are mainly focused on Europe. Brands trained as a physical education teacher at Windesheim High School, worked on the floor at Visscher Seafood while applying for a job, and joined Seafood Connection 5.5 years ago in a commercial position. He supplies wholesalers and distributors in the German-speaking market with all kinds of frozen fish.
Lucas Nagel
Age: 32
midfielder, 293 matches
Company: Seafood Connection
Function: key account manager
After completing his VWO, Nagel studied Commercial Economics at Windesheim in Zwolle. During his college years, he was on-call at Van der Lee Seafish and could frequently be found on the floor. After completing his college education, Nagel worked in the carpet industry for several months, but fairly soon he was approached by Seafood Connection. Here he has now been working for more than 6.5 years. As key account manager within the Retail department, Nagel manages the larger European Retail accounts.
Jelle de Boer
Age: 30
Attacker, 275 games
Company: Dayseaday Production
Function: business manager
Dayseaday Production is the new salmon production company of the Dayseaday Group. Jelle de Boer, like his teammate Riekelt Jan Brands, has training as a sports teacher. For roughly a decade, he combined that part-time with a part-time job at Dayseaday. When Dayseaday opened the new salmon farm last year, De Boer, when asked, opted for a full-time job as farm manager.
Iede Nentjes
Age: 24
Defender/wingback, 60 games
Company: Dayseaday Fresh
Function: sales manager
In a nutshell, Dayseaday Fresh imports and exports all types of fresh fish available in the market. Fisherman’s son Iede Nentjes is particularly responsible for salmon, both purchasing and sales. After finishing high school (Pieter Zandt), Iede did an intermediate level course in Marketing.
Johannes Schrijver
Age: 24
Midfielder/central-defensive, 94 games
Company: Alias BV
Function: all-round, salesman Spain
Alias BV is a relatively young trading company owned by father Hendricus and son Johannes Schrijver. The core business is the fresh trade of flyshoot fish, such as squid, cuttlefish, gurnard and mullet. The fish are prepared for shipment with the help of on-call workers at Visveiling Urk. Writer dropped out of his university studies in Business Administration to join his father in the fish business.
Pieter Brands
Age: 25
Midfielder, 89 games
Company: Sea Fresh Retail
Position: account manager Benelux
Sea Fresh Retail has a sales team of four that supplies supermarkets with both fresh and frozen seafood. A major concern is consumer packaging.
With his vwo diploma in his pocket, Pieter Brands did the college course in International Business in Zwolle. His graduation project two years ago at Sea Fresh involved researching opportunities for frozen fish in the retail market. As account manager, Pieter is responsible for selling fresh and frozen fish products to (inter)national retailers. The position is focused on building, maintaining and expanding long-term partnerships.
Iede den Dulk
Age: 22
Defender/center, 34 games
Company: Quality Seafood
Function: buyer/salesman
Quality Seafood deals mainly in salmon and (in the summer season) IJsselmeer eel. The salmon is largely processed manually. Den Dulk earned a mbo degree in Marketing and Communication and is the only person at Quality Seafood full-time in the office. Owner Stefan Bakker also works partly on the floor.
Rik de Boer
Age: 20
Defender/left-center, 1 match
Company: Affish
Function: driver, forwarding
Affish is a young subsidiary (fresh fish business) of the Salmonhuys Group.
Rik has a painter’s degree and joined Affish six months ago, primarily for transport by bucket truck in Urk.
Klaas Kramer
Age: 29
Defender, 252 games
Company: Visscher Seafood
Function: product manager
Visscher Seafood is a global player in fish. The main business is salmon import, processing and sales worldwide. In addition, whitefish and increasingly sea bass and dorado are also being traded. Fisherman’s son Klaas Kramer was a salesman until recently, but is now responsible for the entire process from incoming whole salmon to selling consumer-packaged salmon portions, in marketing terms: Value Added Products. After high school, Kramer did an MBO course in Business Administration. By his own admission, he was then asked “out of the blue” for a commercial position. Last year, Kramer still had three colleagues at Visscher Seafood from SV Urk’s first selection. Ronald Wezelman (salmon buyer) and Marinus Snoek (whitefish buyer) quit level soccer.
Riekelt Nentjes
Age: 28
Midfielder, 228 matches
Company: Schol
Fisherman’s son Riekelt Nentjes switched to the insurance business last month. Before that, he worked for six years at Visscher Seafood in the retail sales department (Netherlands and German-speaking countries).
