Siebe is an entrepreneur with passion for a developing sustainable food chains and agriculture in emerging markets. In the past 12 years he founded and developed, together with his partner Irmen Mantingh, two successful companies in Vietnam: Fresh Studio and The Fruit Republic (TFR).Fresh Studio (2006) was developed into the leading consulting firm for the sourcing and marketing of sustainable food in Southeast Asia. Fresh Studio offers management consulting, operations and R&D services for the agri-food sector. The growth of Fresh Studio was driven by a large customer base ranging from multinationals such as METRO Cash & Carry, ZESPRI, FrieslandCampina, Pepsico, and world leaders in agriculture inputs such as Rijk Zwaan, Yara, Syngenta and de Heus. Fresh Studio has five offices, two R&D farms and 60 staff in Vietnam and Myanmar.The Fruit Republic was founded in 2009, as nobody was interested to invest in the hard working Vietnamese fruit and vegetables farmers, with an acreage of more then 1.5 million hectares. Hardly any fresh produce got exported, besides low cost dragon fruit to China, and the domestic market was threatened by cheap imports from China and Thailand. Since its foundation, The Fruit Republic has grown rapidly into the leading fresh produce exporter of Vietnam, and the main supplier of the domestic market with top quality fruit and vegetables.TFR has two state-of-the-art pack houses, one high care fresh cut facility, two distribution centers (Hanoi & HCMC), and more than 400 staff. TFR is GLOBALGAP, TESCO Nurture, EU Organic, and BRC grade A certified. Both its corporate farmers, contract farmers and packhouses are certified for the social standards of GRASP and SMETA (Ethical Trade Initiative). In the Mekong Delta, TFR has developed corporate farms for organic citrus production. While in the cool highlands, TFR has developed 2 corporate farms with high tech greenhouse production for top quality vegetable production.