Scaling your business – the story of Edgard & Cooper, episode 4

Vlerick Insight Talks: Professor Veroniek Collewaert meets entrepreneur Jürgen Degrande

Veroniek Collewaert

By Veroniek Collewaert

Professor of Entrepreneurship

13 February 2024

In 2015, Jürgen Degrande co-founded the healthy pet food company, Edgard & Cooper, while he was still studying at Vlerick Business School. Today, the scale-up has a team of over 200 people, working in Kortrijk (HQ), London, Paris, Rotterdam, Madrid, Düsseldorf and Milan – and its products are distributed in 13 countries and sold in over 15,000 shops and online. With over €80m in revenue, the company is now officially a scale-up, aiming to achieve zero carbon, fully sustainable packaging, and 100% ethical sourcing.

How did Jürgen achieve this? In this interview by Veroniek Collewaert, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Vlerick Business School, he shares from firsthand experience what it takes to successfully scale a business.


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In this last episode, Jürgen discusses the challenges of aligning and coordinating actions among a growing team of over 200 employees. He stresses the importance of values and company culture. And he compares the European and American entrepreneurial landscapes.

Thumbnail YouTube Edgard & Cooper video series

Scaling your business – the story of Edgard & Cooper, episode 4

In this last episode, co-founder Jürgen Degrande discusses the challenges of aligning and coordinating actions among a growing team of over 200 employees. He stresses the importance of values and company culture. And he compares the European and American entrepreneurial landscapes.

Jürgen Degrande discusses the challenges of aligning and coordinating actions among a growing team of over 200 employees. He emphasises the importance of setting the right values and maintaining a positive and successful company culture. And he stresses the need for these values to permeate the entire organisation.

To address coordination and alignment, Edgard & Cooper employs OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), setting quarterly team objectives and determining key results to measure. These team objectives have to align with the global objectives set at the beginning of the year. Alignment meetings with all 200 employees help reinforce the company's purpose and ensure that everyone is contributing to the overarching goals.

Reflecting on his experience in the United States, Jürgen notes the differences between the European and American entrepreneurial landscapes. While the US benefits from a large domestic market, Europe leads in commitments to sustainability and regulatory environmental frameworks. He encourages mutual learning and suggests that the US adopt European sustainability practices, while Europe continues to embrace and support entrepreneurship.

The interview concludes with a discussion on the role of education and financial support in fostering high-growth start-ups. Degrande believes in subsidising innovative start-ups and emphasises the importance of education, calling for efforts to connect European countries and facilitate knowledge exchange among entrepreneurs.

Participants

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Sylien Kesteleyn

Sylien Kesteleyn

Portfolio Manager