Hello, I am Lode Meert, a kiwiberry producer for Hoogstraten since 2010. I was born and raised in the industry. My parents had a fruit farm, and from this innate interest in fruit, I enjoyed a horticultural education. After taking over, I further expanded my parents' business. Cherries, morello cherries, peaches, and kiwiberries were added as crops to have a more complete offering. The kiwiberry is the ideal complement to my other crops since kiwiberries are an environmentally friendly soft fruit variety for the autumn, while most other soft fruit varieties are available in the spring and during the summer. I came into contact with the kiwiberry when Filip Debersaques from Hogeschool Gent founded a study group around the kiwiberry. The combination of the different fruit varieties makes for a busy schedule, but it's just a matter of planning. The early kiwiberry variety Geneva is picked before the pears, Weiki and Jumbo are picked after the pears, and Ken's Red is picked in between the apple picking. Around 8:00 in the morning, 4 pickers start cutting the bunches of kiwiberries loose from the plants. The berries are clipped off and stripped of leaves in the field. They are filled into low crates and then taken to the cold storage as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, 6 sorters are busy calibrating the berries into different thickness sizes. The beautiful, hard berries are carefully placed in 125 g punnets. After weighing, the punnets are provided with a lid. Ripe berries are processed into jam the same day. Rough, too small, and misshapen berries are weighed into crates of 3 kg and are processed by customers into syrup, liqueur, and other delicacies. For me, the Hoogstraten quality mark means selling a beautiful product in an honest way at a good price, with the help of good agreements.