Paul & Martons Erasmus success story
Paul is the owner and founder of Green Panda. He grew up in South Tirol in the Italian Alps and has been interested in food from childhood, having also worked in his parents food store. After his studies, he worked in a large food group, where he was responsible for the sale of bio food. He knows that after a stressful day in the office, there is little time for healthy food. He trained in nutrition counselling and during a tour of South America, discovered superfoods, such as Curcuma and chia. His credo of “After stressful days in the office, good and healthy food is important” led him to develop the idea for Green Panda.
Because his company was mainly selling in the German-speaking European Union, Paul was looking for new possibilities. He saw great potential for expanding to other countries, especially on the online market and wanted to adopt and apply his off- and online strategies to other markets. As Green Panda was still a small, very open and transparent company, he was looking for a young entrepreneur who was interesting in food or trade.
In September 2019, his first Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs exchange with Marton started. Marton comes from Hungary and their exchange became very successful. They worked together for the first five months, before Covid-19 and travel restrictions fragmented their stay. Marton returned home for a while and they finished their exchange remotely in September 2020, almost one year after the beginning.
Marton was working in different fields such as product development, sales, marketing, business planning, online marketing and online sales. He was also able to get deepen in-depth look into our Amazon business. Furthermore, Paul profited from Marton’s knowledge of the English language. “We were able to launch the website in English too,” Paul said.
“Marton was a very polite, reliable person,” Paul stated. But it was not only the human aspect that made this exchange so special. “In February 2020, Green Panda was represented at the Biotech Fair in Nürnberg. At these times, sales was a difficult task and it was challenging to find new partners. Marton brought a new client from Saudi Arabia on board during this fair and continued to support him after the fair,” Paul added.
mEHR eRFAHRUNGSBERICHTE
Erasmus für Jungunternehmen ist eine Initiative der Europäischen Union.
