The history of ZON is one of growth. The roots go back a long way, with the setting up of the Cooperative Auction Association in 1915. Eighty-seven years later, midway through 2002, after various mergers and structural changes ZON has developed into one of the largest food horticultural cooperatives in Europe.

The name ZON (Coöperatieve Veiling Zuidoost Nederland, in English: Cooperative Auction South-East Netherlands) came about when, after a series of mergers (including with an auction in Gronsveld and the Roermond auction), there was a final merger in 1991 with the Venlo Vegetable Auction.

ZON's real growth spurt started shortly after this. Although the auction activities remained fundamentally important, ZON started to look further afield. New concepts were created, such as the ZON Fresh Park set up at the end of 2000 which in the following years increasingly developed into the network in the fresh sector concerning activities in the area of fresh, chilled product flows. Since 2009 ZON Fresh Park is calles Fresh Park Venlo.

The involvement of the growers was increased with the introduction of direct membership of the cooperative on 1 January 2001. Until that point the growers were members of (generally) local sales cooperatives that in turn were members of ZON.

A major growth step was made with the incorporation of the various business activities from that point on in a number of operating companies that are controlled by ZON Holding B.V. This enables ZON to carry out an array of services more quickly, efficiently and effectively as the cooperating partner for growers and buyers.

ZON has now developed into an innovative specialist in sales and marketing, logistics, packaging and quality assurance of fruit and vegetables.