New consortium for exclusive new products
Researchers from Wageningen UR Glasshouse horticulture will work with innovative growers to develop revenue models with new high-quality crops from Dutch greenhouses. Medicines from plants form the top of the ‘value pyramid’. But value can also be created with, for example, natural aromas, colours and flavours or exotic products where consistent high quality is demanded all year round. The ability to control the content of ingredients with adjustable climate conditions gives high-tech greenhouse horticulture a unique position.
Annual deposit of € 15,000
The founders of Glasshouse horticulture are Inno20: Dings Strawberries & Brookberries, Duijvestijn Tomatoes, Fresh Group, Kwekerij de Wieringermeer, Opti-flor, Ter Laak Orchids and Van der Voort. The members of the consortium pay an amount of € 15,000 per year, for a period of at least two years. Half of the annual amount contributed by a company serves to finance pre-competitive research that is chosen together.
Representatives of the Greenhouse Horticulture Inno20 members raise the glass (vlnr): Fresh Group, Ter Laak Orchids, Wageningen UR Horticulture, Dings Strawberries & Brookberries, Opti-flor (2 men), Duijvestijn Tomatoes. (Wieringermeer and Van der Voort nursery missing). Standing: Sjaak Bakker, business unit manager of Wageningen UR Glasshouse horticulture. (Photo: Gerard Boonekamp).
Depending on any subsidy conditions, the cultivation concepts and business cases developed will only be available to the members of the Inno20 Greenhouse Horticulture. The entrepreneurs themselves decide how the other half will be spent on their own business, in the form of services provided by WUR Glasshouse Horticulture. Wageningen UR Glasshouse Horticulture also applies this model in the so-called ‘club of 100’, where suppliers pay part of the research costs.
Distinctive capacity
The starting point for the initiative for the formation of Inno20 greenhouse horticulture in 2014 was the report by McKinsey on Dutch greenhouse horticulture, commissioned by LTO Glaskracht Nederland. It found that the Dutch fruit vegetable sector has little distinguishing capacity compared to other countries and competes mainly on cost price. In the same vein, researchers from WUR Glasshouse Horticulture already worked with growers on the cultivation possibilities and earnings models for algae and vanilla. These are not part of the Inno20 greenhouse horticulture consortium.
From: Magazin groenten&fruit
