CEO of Eosta Volkert Engelsman was joined by a fake Chinese doctor on stage at Fruit Logistica for a tongue-in-cheek launch of the Dutch organic specialists new range of nutrition-rich roots to be rolled out across European food stores.
The Health Wonders range includes several kinds of roots – ginger, turmeric, ginseng and garlic – with positive health benefits under “Back to Roots” slogan.
Along with some other characters, Engelsman sang a “Health is Wealth” song and was presented with a so-called Health Wonders 2017 award for creating such an innovative healthy brand.
“Health Wonders is about going back to your roots because 6,000 years of food expertise can’t be wrong; millions of health freaks can’t be wrong,” he told PBUK.
“Professor Ginseng is representing all Chinese medicine which is basically food-driven. We also had on stage, Doctor Donald T Pill Booster who believes in this very sustainable concept of selling you pills, because it’s not about the pill, it’s about the side effects that generate the sales of new pills – it’s a bit of fun, but there is a serious message.
“We’ve got super foods and now we’ve got super roots. Things like ginger, turmeric, ginseng; there is a wealth of roots that we will present to the consumer in a pill box with side effects written on a brochure like “you may get yellow fingers after cutting turmeric.”
Engelsman says Health Wonders address “big pharma” which focuses on “making money” rather than promoting good health and helping consumers.
“I’m sure that the growth in organic has contributed to the trend of personalised nutrition and it’s the result of more transparency; how people these days tend to check online before they see their doctors to get some pills, maybe they think ‘let’s look into how food can help’.
“There is a tremendous commercial opportunity for all of us, particularly retail to stop selling garbage like salts, sugar, fats and guacamoles that only contain 0.3% avocado powder for instance. The rest may be good for the short term profit-driven shareholder but not for your tastebuds, let alone for your health.
“A company that doesn’t invest in health, the environment and people creates a risk for itself, it’s profitability in the future. I have tremendous hope, which is realistic hope, that sustainability will permeate into the DNA of the financial world as well,” he adds.
