I am Jan van Genderen, owner of strawberry nursery Royal Berry from Bemmel.
We grow, pack and market strawberries.
Royal Berry stands for the best strawberry. Our passion is to let as many
people as possible enjoy delicious Royal Berry strawberries.
We do this in 35 hectares of glass greenhouses and in 22 hectares of tunnels
and plastic roofs for summer production.
The relationship between Kekkilä-BVB and Royal Berry is very old.
Almost older than I am.
That relationship has actually become increasingly robust.
Where BVB Substrates was our substrate supplier in the past,
Kekkilä-BVB is now more of a substrate partner for us.
That goes so far that Kekkilä-BVB supplies us with the substrate.
We coordinate together which mixture is optimal for which crop.
Kekkilä-BVB also collects the substrate here after use.
That is something we are actually very proud of.
We are the first in Europe to set it up in this way.
That we do not actually use substrate, but borrow substrate.
The most important aspect of the collaboration is of course trust.
I can blindly trust that Jan Simons, our current contact person,
but also the other people at Kekkilä-BVB will always think along about what is right for our cultivation and our company.
Jan was a very young entrepreneur who was very ambitious.
He had bought a company of 6 hectares, a former tomato company.
That was converted into a strawberry company and now, 13 years later,
he has a company of 55 hectares of strawberries where we have been the proud supplier of the substrate for 40 years, also from his father.
What I am most proud of is that we have always kept in touch with Jan,
have built up a good relationship and have always been able to supply the substrate as the only supplier for this very large company.
I am very proud of that.
Jan van Genderen of Royal Berry has just indicated
that they actually borrow the substrate.
This means that we also retrieve the substrate after cultivation.
After processing, and especially after major analyses to look, precisely from that point of view,
the piece of quality, but also the piece of safety, to always comply with it.
From there we can always see how a product can then be used correctly in another crop.
From the point of view of the customer it is particularly important, by means of an LCA and an environmental footprint,
that we provide insight into the ultimate environmental impact of the substrate
In particular, the reuse of the substrate, which we ultimately do, as a second life.
This does indeed influence the LCA and the environmental footprint of its final product.
It is precisely the covenant that has been signed in which clear objectives are set for 2025,
but also towards 2050… That is why it is important that these initiatives are deployed more quickly.
We as Kekkilä-BVB also believe in this. We believe that through these
initiatives we can continue an accelerated transition in substrate cultivation.