nursery
“Quality is our guideline and we are continuously striving for better”
More than ten years ago the Austrian horticultural families Kainz and Mayer decided to join forces and set up a new business. Their aim was to professionalise, improve efficiency and prepare their companies for the future. And they did just that: today Kainz & Mayer Marchfeldtomaten is among the leading Austrian tomato producers. The entrepreneurs are still not satisfied, however: they are bursting with ideas and continuously striving for better things.
The company is located in the Marchfeld, the main Austrian lowland, in the north east of the country. The business is twenty kilometres away from both Vienna and the Slovak capital Bratislava. “This was an important reason for choosing this location,” explains 32-year old Peter Kainz, one of the business’s entrepreneurs. “A whopping three million people live within a fifty-kilometre radius of our business. This is a great advantage, as all our products are sold in the region.”
Advantages of synergy
The Kainz and Mayer families originate from Vienna, where they ran family horticultural businesses for four generations. “Together, the two companies boasted 2 hectares in total, which was fairly small scale. We used to grow many types of vegetables there, in greenhouses, plastic tunnels and outdoors. Our professionality and efficiency were far from ideal due to the small scale of our companies,” Kainz explains.
Because both families understood that professionalisation and specialisation were a must for survival in the long term, they decided to join forces. “This was reinforced by the fact that vegetable prices had been showing a downward trend since 1995, when Austria joined the EU and it became easier to import products from other EU countries. By moving forward together, we hoped to upscale and benefit from the advantages of synergy, as we would only need to invest once in machines, warehouses, and so on.”
The families were no strangers to each other: Johann Kainz Senior is the brother of Waltraud Mayer. “We had been working together for many years, so we knew where we stood with each other.”
No rushing into things
Because both locations in Vienna lacked expansion opportunities, the families started looking for a new site to achieve their ambitions. They certainly didn’t rush into it. “We hired Marc Vergelt and Geert-Willem van de Schoot from a Dutch consulting firm to guide us through the process of finding a new location, building a new business and setting up a new organisation,” says Peter Kainz. “In addition, my cousin Waltraud Mayer and I joined a tomato nursery in Moerkapelle in the Netherlands for a year in order to gain experience in the daily running of a modern greenhouse business. We had decided fairly early on that we wanted to start growing tomatoes: they are not an easy vegetable to grow, which is why they are not for everyone. Because there are a lot of people in our business, it was easy to collect the necessary know-how.”
In 2007, the families eventually bought a 20 ha parcel together, where 6 ha of greenhouses were set up initially. They added 3 ha in 2011 and another 4 ha of greenhouses in 2016, bringing the total acreage to 13 ha. “We chose a standard six-metre high Venlo greenhouse with four-metre covers and hired the greenhouse construction company Gakon to build it. Because everything was so new to us anyway, we didn’t want to take any risks in this respect.”
Family business
A total of eight partners are involved in the business: Johann and Anna Kainz and their sons Peter and Johann, and Waltraud Mayer with her daughter Waltraud and son Thomas. “The management team consists of Thomas Mayer, Waltraud Kasses-Mayer, my brother Johann Kainz and myself”, says Peter Kainz. “In practice, the business is mainly run by Thomas and yours truly. Thomas is responsible for cultivation, and I handle sales, personnel and all organisational matters. Furthermore, my brother Johann is responsible for the financial administration and my cousin Waltraud carries out a variety of administrative tasks. Our parents also still help out, but less intensively.”
The business grows medium vine tomatoes (Cappricia and Bonaparte varieties) and various types of cocktail and cherry tomatoes. Harvesting takes place from March until early December. “When it comes to growing methods and technical equipment, our business can be compared with modern Dutch companies,” Peter Kainz says. “We grow on stone wool, for instance, work with gutters, and recycle all our water. We often work with organic pest controls and try to minimise the use of pesticides as much as possible.”
Regional sales
The tomatoes are distributed to supermarkets in a radius of up to 300 kilometres around the business, via the Austrian growers’ association Gemüse Erzeuger Organisation Ost Österreich. “We deliver to REWE, Spar and Hofer, for instance. In recent years demand has been on the rise because Austrians, and also Slovaks, are increasingly opting for products from their own region. They are also prepared to pay more for them. This is why we have had some very good years recently, from an economic perspective. We have also invested a lot in business process optimisation, for instance with regard to energy management.”
The growers have the greenhouse cleaned by the spraying company Marcel Veenman every year so that they can make optimum use of the available light and save energy. Kainz again: “Also, we replace the screen fabric regularly and we use anti-condensation foil when we plant in December. There are lots of sustainable energy facilities such as wind turbines nearby. We help compensate for fluctuations in the electricity supply in the balancing markets.”
Another important success factor is that the business is mainly focused on varieties with great flavour. “We are continuously testing new varieties for our business, which we review on taste as well as shelf life and production. Through social media we also try to maintain a feel for what consumers want, and to respond adequately.”
Flexibility and quality
Although the entrepreneurs are satisfied with how the business is running, they are continuously on the lookout for new possibilities. “Stagnation is decline, after all,” Kainz emphasises. “The biggest challenge for the future is to be as flexible as possible in terms of delivery, varieties, packaging, and so on. Because our customers are increasingly demanding flexibility, we started packing our tomatoes ourselves last year; previously, this was done by the growers’ organisation. But because we now own a sorting and packing line ourselves, we can respond better and more quickly to our customers’ wishes.” The Dutch firm Taks Tuinbouwtechniek supplied the sorting and packing line for vine and cocktail tomatoes. The machines for weighing and packing the small packs come from Topcontrol and Ulma Packaging.
To offer more flexibility, both families are also looking at investing in assimilation lighting, as this would enable them to deliver year-round. “We have noticed significant demand for local tomatoes during the winter months as well.”
Risk spreading
In addition the partners want to focus on further quality improvement in the coming years. Among other things, this requires a significant investment in training employees. “We have 70 permanent employees, and up to 140 in the summer. We regularly organise meetings on specific subjects for our employees: pests and diseases, techniques, and so on. By lifting their knowledge to a higher level, we want to further improve our quality. Quality is our guiding principle in everything we do. And in this respect, we always aim to set the bar a little higher.”
This doesn’t conclude the list of future plans, however. Indeed, last year the business bought another fifteen acres of land earmarked for a further extension – and not necessarily in tomatoes. “We are also exploring market possibilities for other crops, including lettuce and berries, and even fish farming is an option. One advantage of working like this is risk spreading. In short, there is still quite a lot in the pipeline.”
Summary
In 2004 two families, who each ran a small-scale business in Vienna, decided to set up a new, more professional horticultural business together. They founded Kainz & Mayer Marchfeldtomaten, a 13 ha nursery that grows vine, cocktail and cherry tomatoes. They supply local supermarkets. The entrepreneurs are entirely focused on quality and are also continuing to develop their business. Further growth is on the cards for the coming years and, in addition, the Austrians are exploring cultivating a second product.
Text: Ank van Lier. Images: Kainz & Mayer.
Related
Experts try to revitalise China’s failing high tech greenhouses
China’s increasing awareness of food safety and food security is driving development of more modern and efficient cultivation systems. Over the last 15 years many new ‘high-tech’ greenhouses have been constructed, often with help from local subsidies. However, in many cases they are not adequately equipped and growers still lack technical expertise to make them work. With a growing trend to hire in expert advice some of these nurseries are becoming productive.
The majority of China’s horticultural crops are still produced using traditional, somewhat primitive methods but there is a growing desire to master high tech systems. An increasing shortage of resources such as clean water and energy cries out for more efficient production and at the same time consumers are demanding for safe, quality products.
In response, government and local authorities have subsidised many new greenhouses to improve land utilization, create better environmental conditions and reduce the need for chemical substances. However, the potential of many high tech projects has been wasted due to lack of knowledge: Splinter new glasshouses have been left desolate after a failed crop. Now there’s a trend to revitalise some of these greenhouses using foreign-based expertise.
Solar still common
The most common greenhouse in China in still the traditional solar greenhouse, a half plastic tunnel fixed to a single wall. Each solar house covers around 1 mu (0.667 ha) and usually several are built close to each other in an agricultural zone. These solar greenhouses are mostly found in the north of the country where the temperature can drop to -15ºC and even to -40ºC in the winter and rise to 35-40ºC in the summer. Despite the extreme cold, plants survive because the temperature inside remains relatively warm (10ºC), even without heating.
Sometimes growers store heat in the soil wall during the day and release it at night. But these greenhouses are not productive during the peak of the summer when the temperature becomes too high.
Some air vents are present in the roof but air circulation is poor and the climate is difficult to control. Plants are usually grown in soil and crop protection products are used regularly which results in reasonable yields but at extra cost.
Not profitable
In southern China, where it is much warmer, growers tend to construct plastic tunnels that require little investment. Again, no climate control is possible so in winter they are far too cold and they are very vulnerable to storm damage. “We do see an increase in solar greenhouses, and to some extent tunnels, but it’s the high tech greenhouses which are really growing,” says greenhouse consultant, Lifeng Peng, of Delphy China. This is an international organization for horticultural advice, training and research based in the Netherlands.
“More local greenhouse constructors are becoming established and the advantages are better environmental control, high and efficient utilization of land and less pests and diseases. However, the main problem is the operation. Growers may achieve a slightly higher yield than in a solar greenhouse but it is still a third to a half of that in a greenhouse in the Netherlands which cannot compensate the investment.”
Another problem is that the new high tech greenhouses are scattered over the entire country. If they were concentrated in one place growers could jointly establish an infrastructure and share resources, such as gas pipes or water purification units, and colleagues could more easily exchange knowledge.
Appearance is deceiving
Made from glass or polycarbonate, these new greenhouses appear similar to typical Dutch greenhouse. However, it’s a different story inside. Some have very little equipment or they have systems which growers don’t know how to use. “Some growers have installed locally produced irrigation systems but these did not always work too well. Others simply don’t have the knowledge to use the equipment to make the greenhouse productive. That’s where we are trying to help,” says Peng.
She admits it’s very difficult to change the mindset of the people running the greenhouses but has recorded a success at the Blue Horizon nursery in Shandong province, north east China. The nursery was established early 2013 by a big private group which has diverse interests including hotels.
Reconstruction design
It built six separate polycarbonate greenhouses each of 2500 m2 although actual growing space is 1500 m2, the rest is taken up by concrete paths and heating pipes. Four of the houses are growing dragon fruits, seedlings and pot plants but two had been virtually abandoned after the debut crop of strawberries failed.
In October 2015 Delphy was invited to do a reconstruction design with the goal to produce cherry tomatoes and medium sized tomatoes. “When I arrived these houses looked very neglected and had in fact been empty for nearly three years. The first thing we did was change the black soil covering to a white one because it was very dark inside. We would have liked to replace the polycarbonate roof with a glass but that would be too heavy for this construction.”
Yield improved
The greenhouses were changed from soil cultivation to cocopeat slabs, a drip irrigation system was installed and Peng formulated a fertigation recipe. “We explained the costs and estimated pay back period. Then we installed a Hoogendoorn climate computer and connected everything we can control such as the window vents and the pad and fan cooling system.”
The seedlings, varieties Fortesa 74-112 (cherry tomato), Rijk Zwaan 882 (medium size) were planted 1 Jan 2016 and they haven’t used any chemical products yet. Production still doesn’t compare with Dutch houses but it is much better than solar greenhouses. If production continues as expected, they should be able to achieve 25 kg/m2 from January to early August. A normal yield in China is just under 9 kg/m2.
The greenhouses are 4.8 metres high but there is still no rail system for trollies. It’s almost impossible to work at the top of the plants, says Peng frustrated. Workers stand on a table and then move the table to work on the next plant. “However, we were able to convince them to use bumblebees for pollination, instead of vibrators, and this is going very well. The tomatoes have a good shape and flavour.”
Pick-you-own tourism
The harvest is mainly for the group’s own five star hotel and restaurant but they also offer pick-your-own for residents living in the nearby towns. In fact, it’s gaining a reputation as a tourist attraction and many people come and pick the tomatoes because they know it is safe product.
“People like the experience of visiting a greenhouse and they pay double the normal price for tomatoes. However, it is not ideal in terms of hygiene and it does pose a disease risk. I am trying to persuade the owners to harvest the tomatoes themselves and perhaps sell them in their eco-restaurant which is very nearby,” she says.
Further expansion
Blue Horizon has already asked the consultant to help design and advise on the operations of a new 6-10 hectare greenhouse they hope to build soon. The company’s four other greenhouses could also be reconstructed in future. “I’ve also just done a reconstruction design for a greenhouse in Changzhou.” It currently produces pot plants but it wants to switch to 5,000 m2 for tomatoes and 2,000 m2 for strawberries. “This investor is looking for benefits so we did a lot of calculations to show the potential profit. It is a trend and we are being asked more and more for this service,” says Peng.
Demo centre
In a similar way a demonstration centre at Chongming Island, Shanghai, is aiming to integrate technology and skills into Chinese horticulture.
The National Engineering Research Centre for Protected Agriculture (NERCPA) is a two hectare demonstration unit designed by Dutch greenhouse manufacturer, the Bom Group, and built by its Chinese partner, Dushi Green. Priva coordinated the state-of the-art project which includes underground storage for heating and cooling storage, irrigation and internal transport systems. It contains trial compartments of 1,000 m2 which is similar to the Delphy Improvement Centre in Bleiswijk. The aim of NERCPA is to verify the possibilities for new technology in the Chinese market as well as offer training.
When clients are considering investing in a greenhouse in China they tend to visit NERCPA first, says Peng, whose colleague Didi Qian, was involved in setting up the centre. “Often in China people build a greenhouse and then seek cultivation advise but often the greenhouse is not suitable for the crop they want to grow. Now they are starting to realize that they first need a clear idea about what they want to grow and then should build a special greenhouse for those crops.”
Summary
Many high tech greenhouses in China are failing to fulfil their potential due to lack of knowledge and technical expertise. Some of these nurseries are reinvesting and by accepting expert advice have significantly improved yield and efficiency.
Text: Helen Armstrong. Images: Blue Horizon
‘Plants are not just a number, they are very personal’
JD Propagation, of Victoria, Australia, had planned to pay off its first four greenhouses in five years. In fact, the business has grown so fast that within six years it has paid off its 13th house. Attention to detail, including inspecting and handling each individual plant, so customers receive top quality plants sets the company apart.
Dan Patience is passionate about his plants. He admits he has been obsessed with plants since he was 15 years old, so it was natural that he should work in horticulture including for some of Australia’s largest bedding plant and shrub nurseries. In 2009, Dan and his wife Jenny decided to start their own nursery.
They bought a paddock on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, a region rich in horticulture and home to some of their biggest customers. The climate is almost perfect, occasionally in winter it drops to minus 2-3 degrees and there is always a gentle sea breeze.
Natural gas
“We started with four greenhouses with money borrowed against their house. Luckily one customer placed orders before we even started!” His business plan was to pay off the first four houses in five years, but with a growing reputation this happened a lot faster. “We’ve grown in line with customer demand and just finished the 13th house in six years.”
JD Propagation began growing herbs and bedding plants, such as calibrachoas, geraniums and verbenas from cuttings, and did some deflasking of tissue culture. Today it produces 3,000 product lines, about 5% of which are unrooted cuttings, 80% vegetative cuttings and rest are seed-produced plugs.
These are raised in ten double skinned poly growing houses, with energy screens and southwest facing window vents, that measure four metres to the gutter. This creates a good environment, says Dan Patience. The houses are heated using natural gas and the main heater in the growing house with lighting also produces carbon dioxide. The nursery also has two mother stock houses and the latest addition was a nucleus greenhouse, all three of which are fully screened against insects.
Insect screening
“Our biggest weakness used to be the absence of insect screening so it was getting harder and harder to guarantee the virus integrity of our stock. We now have two insect screened mother plant houses totaling 1,200 m2,” he says. These were detached from each other but the latest house was built in between and attached to the two. This now accommodates nucleus material.
“We buy virus index material from international breeders overseas once or twice a year. We put this stock directly into the nucleus house and use it purely to take cuttings for the mother stock. Only two staff members are allowed to enter the house and they sterilize their tools after working on each plant.”
Patience recalls that when he worked for the big wholesale nurseries, he often found the quality of plugs and cuttings wasn’t all that great. “We first had to nurture and trim them before we could grow them on. When I started my own business my aim was to supply growers with a perfect plug that was ready to go immediately. We are so focused on quality that all our plants are visually inspected and handled by our growers. The fact that our plants are trimmed by hand, fed by hand and watered by hand sets us apart from other bigger plug producers in Australia. Plants are not just a number, they are very personal.”
Constant improvement
Actually JD Propagation has very little automation, currently just a New Zealand designed climate control system called Autogrow, which is distributed by horticultural technology and innovation company, PowerPlants Australia. It has a touch screen design panel and can be logged into it from anywhere in the world. “We have also ordered an Ellepot machine for the production of paper pots for cuttings so we’ll be installing that later this year.
“We used to make up our own potting mixtures, by sourcing our own peat and blending it with perlite to get it right. Three years ago we ran some trials with Pindstrup substrates as I had used these at a big nursery in the past. The results were so good we switched to using entirely their products and now we import three to four containers per year. We use four mixes: small cell; two general ones; and a mother stock recipe. The mixes are always the same, the quality is excellent and the cutting are really vigorous so it makes life really easy.”
The nursery also recently introduced a new form of bench heating. “Originally we used heated mats on the benches but because the pots were sitting on the mats sanitation was a problem. It was difficult to disinfect properly because of the many pockets in the matting that harbored debris. “The top of the bench is now made from plastic mesh with PVC heating pipes running directly underneath. Water can drain away and we can sanitize really easily. Also, each greenhouse has a concrete floor so it is super clean.”
Hardened off in customer climate
Patience’s main aim is to produce a quality plug that is hardened off and finished properly. Each growing compartment is 512 m2, which consists of two houses of 256 m2; once the cuttings are struck they move through each compartment. Finally they are hardened off in the exact environment as that of the customer. “If they grow outdoors we finish our plants outdoors, if they produce under cold plastic, we finish the plants under cold plastic. By the time the cutting reaches the customer it will have spent 25% of its life matching the customer’s environment so the plants don’t experience any shock when they arrive.” On average the crops are 6-8 weeks old when sold.
Light recipes
The nursery is also using several LED lamp recipes. Traditionally it used HID lighting for crops that were running behind or if plants were needed very fast. Now the interruption of day/night is done with LEDs.
“We use a few spectrums of red, a few spectrums of blue, white light, a little far red and some infrared all of which we blend together. We can produce plants very fast with the lights on at night and the heater running to produce CO2.
“By using the correct spectrum we can achieve the results we want with low energy input. Energy costs are rising so anything we can do to save on these costs is important. If we can keep our energy costs down and speed up our cropping time we can achieve more plants per square meter.”
Experimental
The company ships across Australia to around 80 customers. Having grown nearly 30% every year for several years it is now in a consolidation phase. “We have grown so fast we don’t want to outstrip the skills of our staff and we need to ensure that we keep on top of our quality. We are now focusing on growing skills and making sure everyone really understands what they are doing before we expand any further,” he says. The company employs 25 people including five experienced growers.
Nevertheless, Patience is further experimenting with plug grown camellias and producing them in 24 cc volume plugs. “This is not traditional but because of our liquid feeding regime we can get them to the grower with a lot of vigor. When the grower pots them on they have a better growth rate than those produced in a larger pot or tube. “We work hard on getting the protocols in place and mastering any new cultivation that a customer requests. We enjoy a challenge”
Summary
Australian company, JD Propagation, checks every plug tray and plant by hand to ensure quality is maximised. The cultivation strategy, including attention to substrate, hygiene and LED light recipes, helps create optimum growing conditions for the production of vigorous plants. Each crop is hardened off in the same conditions it will experience at the grower.
Text: Helen Armstrong. Photos: JD Propagation
Australian marketing success supported by Dutch cultivation know-how
Greenhouse horticulture in Australia is growing considerably. Flavorite was one of its pioneers and continues to lead the way. The company emerged from the trade and has strong connections with its customers. The entire greenhouse technology comes from the Netherlands and Dutch ex-grower Toon Oomen is a valued consultant. Yield and quality has sharply increased thanks partly to his advice.
As a vegetable trader some 20 years ago Mark Millis had nothing good to say about the quality of the products he traded. His son and manager Chris Millis says, “My father said: ‘I want to get the taste back into the tomato.’ Therefore he started to grow for himself. The breakthrough came when he teamed up with fellow trader, Warren Nicol. They started with a small greenhouse and that has expanded to the 24 ha of greenhouses today in Warragul near Melbourne.”
Own brand
If you can point to the start of professional covered cultivation in Australia then it is the founding of Flavorite in 1994. Since then, the company has always been at the forefront of developments. “We are a plant propagator, grower and trader,” says Millis. “But the focus is now on the cultivation. In addition to our own tomatoes and peppers we sell products such as eggplants and cucumbers that are grown by a network of colleagues, who together have 25 ha glass. We also supply herbs, mango and pineapple. We sell to Australian supermarkets; just one per cent is exported to Singapore and Hong Kong."
Currently there are some 200 ha of high tech greenhouses in Australia and the sector is growing rapidly. This year alone has seen the acreage increase by 25%. Flavorite has always remained a family company but many other big nurseries have been set up by external investors, such as D'vineripe and Blush. “We are in this at the right time. Previously the supermarkets didn’t like private labels. Now they differentiate themselves on sustainability and family companies. With our approach and own brand this is a perfect fit,” says the manager.
Knowledge from abroad
Australia is a country without any greenhouse tradition. Father and son, Millis, realised very quickly that they then needed to acquire knowledge from abroad. That led to tours and courses in the Netherlands. Fifteen years ago they met Toon Oomen, who was then still a grower in Galder, Brabant. Oomen had tomatoes running through his blood: he attained high yields and good quality. That attracted the attention of breeders, who organised numerous trips to his nursery often with foreign visitors. Therefore when he discontinued his nursery he was approached immediately. “I was asked from various sides if I would like to be a manager in Australia. That was not my ambition but after a visit to a large number of these nurseries I saw another solution: Advice given remotely.”
Now he supervises six intensive nurseries, two of which are in New Zealand, and three extensive nurseries. Three times per year he flies across the world and visits them all. For the rest of the year he supervises them via Skype.
Power of persuasion
“Each week they take ten photos of a few plants, taken at the same time on each day, which they send to me via email. In addition I receive all the details about greenhouse climate, settings, watering, heating, cooling, screens and even the pollination (which occurs manually because no bumble bees are present in Australia). The biggest challenge with this supervision is to teach the growers to read the plant.” He does this himself too: first he carefully studies the photos, even before he looks at the climate and production data. He then gives the grower on the nursery his opinion on how the plants are looking and what should be done.
At Flavorite he was initially responsible for 3,000 m2 as a trial area. That has been extended to 11 ha, nearly half of the nursery. In various steps the way of cultivation has changed as a result of his advice. “Substrate, varieties, planting density: all have been adjusted. After that we discussed the cultivation strategy,” says Oomen. “They have a very extreme climate with a high radiation and so they created a robust plant to get through the hot summer. As a result they lost yield during the summer. It takes some persuasion to get them to enter the summer with a bare plant. The diffuse coating Redufuse became available just in time. That made it a lot easier. After a trial they were convinced: the difference was an extra four kilos.”
Greenhouse from the Netherlands
Chris Millis says that the tomato yield over the last seven years has increased from 45 to 80 kilo per m2. “At the beginning we concentrated on improving the quality, irrigation, heating and labour efficiency. Now we focus more on yield,” he says. He doesn’t want to lose Oomen as an advisor. When Oomen indicated that the long plane trips were becoming too much, the nurseries that he advises immediately said: Then in future fly in business class.
It’s striking that the entire greenhouse, including the equipment, right down to the concrete poles, comes from the Netherlands. Even welders were flown in from the Netherlands.
“The greenhouse sector here is still very small and is spread out in clusters. A supply industry is starting to develop but the distances are great. The Netherlands simply has the best equipment; you don’t find that quality here. We keep a careful eye on developments in the Netherlands and each year we offer work placements to two Dutch students. We are always looking for international talent,” says Millis.
His nursery has grown very fast in recent years. Now it’s time to consolidate, he says. “We have taken on a lot of new people and we have to train them ourselves because no formal training is available here. We are now paying attention to improving propagation, packing and automation. But along side that we continue to expand but at a more leisurely pace.”
Lessons for the Netherlands
The whole world looks to the Netherlands for horticultural technology and cultivation. But in other areas Dutch growers can learn from their Australian colleagues, says Oomen. “The nurseries have a strong connection with the trade and the supermarkets. Varieties are chosen together with the buyers, who, five times per season, carry out taste trials on the nursery. Furthermore agreements about the supply are made throughout the year and there is a total openness about the approach. The customers can see everything, for example the implementation of the integrated crop protection measures including the complete registration of substances used, quantities, and times of spraying moments."
Also in the area of finance, Dutch growers can get ideas, he says. “Now, when there is a transfer of nursery, it has to be financed each time again. You always have to go to the bank. You can do it differently: Through more cooperation between growers; through external financers or through a system of ‘sharemilking’, a cooperation whereby a company slowly moves from one owner to another. The Netherlands may well lead the way in the field of technology and cultivation, but in the financial area there is much to improve."
Summary
Flavorite was one of the first professional greenhouse nurseries in Australia. The company was set up by traders and it still has a trading function. Because the country does not have a greenhouse tradition the company obtains its knowledge from the Netherlands. The entire greenhouse is Dutch and ex-grower Toon Oomen advises on cultivation techniques. Conversely the Dutch can also learn from Australia in terms of financing and connecting with customers, he says.
Text: Tijs Kierkels Photos: Flavorite