VAVI Appoints Aviko’s Dick Zelhorst as Chairman to Lead Dutch Potato Processing Industry
The board of VAVI, the Dutch Potato Processing Industry association, has appointed Dick Zelhorst, Chief Agro & Supply Chain Officer at Aviko, as its new chairman, succeeding Stephan van Kuik.
The Dutch Potato Processing Industry association (Vereniging voor de Aardappelverwerkende Industrie, VAVI) has a new chairman. The VAVI board has appointed Dick Zelhorst, who works at Aviko, to the position. He succeeds Stephan van Kuik and will focus on the common interests of VAVI and its members. The association sees in him a chairman who can build connections within and outside the organisation and give direction to the joint agenda of the Dutch potato processing industry.
Experience that matches the sector’s tasks. Zelhorst is Chief Agro & Supply Chain Officer at Aviko, one of the four largest potato processors in the world and the European market leader in fresh, frozen and dried potato products. He brings extensive experience in the potato sector and considerable knowledge of raw material supply, sustainability and the international market — themes of great importance to the industry. According to VAVI, he adds relevant expertise and a broad perspective to the board, in line with the challenges facing the Dutch potato processing industry in the coming years.
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Working together on a future-proof sector. As chairman, Zelhorst will work with the board and director Marieke Hoste on the further positioning of VAVI and a strong, future-proof Dutch potato processing industry.
In his first statement in the new role, Zelhorst framed the task in terms of competitiveness and sustainability: “The potato chain in Europe and in particular in the Netherlands is facing enormous challenges. On the one hand, it is essential for the entire chain in the Netherlands that the processing industry remains competitive and, on the other hand, there is a great social responsibility to make the potato chain more sustainable. The Dutch potato processing industry is willing to make its contribution to this together with the other chain parties.”
The appointment comes at a demanding moment for the sector Zelhorst will now represent. Dutch processing plants handled approximately 308,800 tonnes of potatoes in September, but twelve-month processing volumes remain roughly 7–8% below the previous annual period, and the 2026 Dutch harvest is estimated at roughly 3.5 million tonnes — 17% below 2025. With factories depending on imported raw material for nearly half of September’s intake, the competitiveness and chain-cooperation themes Zelhorst named are anything but abstract.
VAVI represents the Dutch potato processing industry, covering french fries and dehydrated potato products. The chairmanship connects the association to Aviko’s raw-material and supply-chain expertise at a time when securing industrial-quality potatoes — from a smaller European crop — has become the industry’s central preoccupation.
For growers, the change at the top of VAVI is worth watching beyond the personnel note itself. The chairman of the processors’ association sits at the table where contract terms, quality specifications and sustainability requirements are shaped — all of which feed directly into farmgate economics. Zelhorst’s background on the raw-material supply side suggests a chairman who knows the growers’ end of the chain as well as the factory end; whether that translates into contract terms that reflect this season’s tighter supply will be one of the stories to follow through the winter negotiation round. His emphasis on keeping the Dutch processing industry competitive also reads as a signal that the association sees international competition for raw material and markets as a structural issue, not a one-season problem.
