Five years of Annona

This month Annona turns five. And I'm proud — more than I expected to be.

I think back to the beginning. In the middle of the pandemic, at a picnic table in the garden of Rolduc in Kerkrade, because working indoors wasn't allowed. That's where Michiel Steeman and I sat, with a laptop and a thermos of coffee, writing our first whitepaper. One question wouldn't let go of us: why does affordable capital reach the large companies at the top of a supply chain, but not the smallholder producers deep at the bottom — the people without whose products there is little or nothing left to trade further up, and who at the same time carry most of the risk?

Because that's how it is. These producers aren't weak. They're disconnected — not only from the financial system, but also from direct, meaningful trade relationships. That's where my conviction lies: by de-commoditising products — away from anonymous bulk, toward distinctive products with a story of their own — new, meaningful markets emerge. And with the right financing, smallholder producers can plug into them. In an era of climate change, where the risks hit hardest precisely at the bottom of the chain, that is more urgent than ever.

We didn't walk those first years alone, and I'm grateful for that. Together with Docklab and Windesheim we worked on the first idea of a digital twin of the supply chain: a digital counterpart on which financing can follow real risk rather than perceived risk — and it is exactly that difference that keeps capital away from the deeper layers today. Setting up ODF taught us about blended finance: how to combine different kinds of capital to share risk, making financing possible where it otherwise wouldn't be. And with Tradin Organic we learned inside real supply chains, as a buyer. I've learned an enormous amount from every one of these partners.

What began as an idea on a picnic table is now a working company. Annona is not a bank, not a foundation, and not a fund itself — we set up funds and manage them, partly through an automated platform that ties financing and transparency together, with an SPV structure that lets capital actually flow deep into the chain. Alongside that, our advisory practice grew: we advise companies on making their supply chains more transparent, and financiers on structuring financing that genuinely reaches the deeper layers.

Five years have taught me that this work can't be done from an office. A great deal of capital stays away because of perceived risk — a picture formed at a distance that rarely holds up. You only see the real risks in the field. And those are exactly the ones that can be understood and mitigated: with data and visibility into the chain, with direct trade relationships, and by sharing risk through blended finance. That takes field presence, stamina and patience — and people who believe capital can do good, without dressing it up as prettier than it is. Not every project went the way we hoped. But behind every step there is a team, a cooperative, a region that moved forward.