Thanet Earth

Three Dutch companies are working in the south-east of England on the country’s largest ever greenhouse horticulture project: Thanet Earth. The complex will ultimately encompass 51 hectares of glass, and provides jobs for about 550 people in the region. Biological crop protection is a crucial factor in the plans and objectives. “It’s simply going to have to be a great success.”

We’re talking to Red Star Trading’s Cor van der Kaaij. Red Star Trading, in collaboration with the Rainbow Growers Group growers’ association, A&A Komkommers and the British Fresca trading house, is working on the development of hundreds of hectares of modern greenhouse horticulture. The first 24 hectares are scheduled to go into production at the beginning of next year, of which 9.5 hectares will be allocated to the cultivation of tomatoes (Red Star Trading), 8.5 hectares to sweet peppers (Rainbow), and 6.1 hectares to cucumbers (A&A Komkommers).

National produce

The produce grown in the greenhouses will be marketed in the UK. “Local for local, that’s our approach,” Cor van der Kaaij says. “The British have a preference for produce grown in their own country. However, there is not sufficient homegrown produce, and Britain has to import much of its needs. That’s the opportunity we plan to utilise, on the basis of the following success factors: locally-cultivated produce of extremely high quality, modern cultivation based on assimilation lighting, few transport kilometres, and co-generation plants for the generation of power. We plan to construct a total of five cogeneration plants, capable of generating a total of more than 15 megawatts of electricity.”

A larger share of the margin

In addition, the three companies are reviewing the feasibility of staying outside the customary mechanism that determines the prices growers receive for their produce, i.e. the relationship between supply and demand in the spot market. “The shelf prices have always been – and still are – very high in Britain,” Cor Van der Kaaij explains. “British retailers receive a relatively larger part of the margin earned by the chain as compared to their colleagues in mainland Europe. We are going to try to boost the growers’ margin, and we are currently in the midst of the negotiations. We will be able to achieve our objective only when we offer tremendous added value in terms of quality and reliability of deliveries – and, self-evidently, absolute food safety.”

The smallest possible minimum

This last issue, food safety, has given cause to the decision taken by the three companies to put all their money on biological crop protection. Red Star has a number of in-house specialists, Ad van den Bosch in the position of Plant Manager, and Gert van Stralen as Crop Protection Officer. They are going to make every possible effort to operate the three British companies on the basis of the maximum possible use of biological crop protection. Chemical crop protection agents will be used solely for corrections, and the produce in the shelves will – self-evidently – be guaranteed residue-free. “We’re going to be supplying the British retail sector, and British supermarkets impose very stringent requirements – and they tolerate absolutely nothing. Consequently biological crop protection is simply going to have to be a great success,” according to Cor van der Kaaij.