The man behind the vision

Who is Hein Deprez, the CEO and founder of UniVeg? And what does he want with Ready Pac?

I visited this morning Mayda Sotomayor of Seald Sweet and Bruce McEvoy, director of global affairs for Belgium’s UniVeg Group, owner of Vero Beach, Fla.-based Seald Sweet LLC. Mayda had just returned from a trip to South Africa were Hein Deprez was present. She said Hein - whom she describes as a low key personality with tremendous vision for the industry - had been looking to make another investment in North America for a while.

McEvoy said UniVeg is involved with fresh cut processing companies that feature the kind of innovation that Ready Pac is known for in the U.S. As I was looking at the links in the UniVeg Web site, I noticed one UniVeg company in Sweden, Hot Cuisine, specializes in ready to eat meals. Its expertise is in applying three technologies to fresh and frozen ingredients:

Sous-vide cooking (in pouches)
Steam pasteurisation (in trays)
M.A.P. (Modified Atmosphere Packaging)

TK: With access to all the fresh cut technology in the U.S. and ready to eat meal technology in Europe, this UniVeg investment in Ready Pac looks to fit the classic ideal of "cross-fertilization." Perhaps fresh cut citrus may be a future side benefit as well for Seald Sweet.