WORKING TOGETHER IN THE ‘CAULIFLOWER CLUB’
THE ULTIMATE CO-OP THAT ISN’T A CO-OP FIVE DUTCH GROWERS HAVE JOINED FORCES SPECIFICALLY TO PRODUCE CAULIFLOWER. THERE’S STRENGTH IN NUMBERS, AND THE GROUP IS AN ATTRACTIVE PARTNER FOR PROCESSORS. “THERE WAS CHEMISTRY FROM DAY ONE,” SAYS PERRY LEEMANS. “WE SEE WHAT THE MARKET WANTS AND THEN WE GROW IT.” “I’ll just message the group and we’ll see who feels like coming.” Perry Leemans, Purchase and Sales Manager at Green Organics, is setting up the interview for this article with a group of cooperating cauliflower growers in the Dutch province of Flevoland whose sales he coordinates. The result is typical of the “cauliflower club”: all the members turn up. It strikes them as a good opportunity to get together. The conversation takes place at Jan Bokdam’s farm in Biddinghuizen. He founded the group in 2004 with fellow local grower Jan van Woerden. Present along with Bokdam are Michiel Stehouwer of Swifterbant, Arend Leen Hoekstra of Lelystad, Bas van den Dries of Dronten, and Martijn Schieman, also from Lelystad. Schieman runs a biodynamic farm, and the others are organic growers.
Since 2004 The group of men grows and sells organic cauliflower for the frozen and canned industry. They work closely with the wholesaler Green Organics in nearby Dronten. The cauliflower club’s story started in 2004. The growers had been supplying the Nautilus co-op, but its reorganization forced them to find a new solution. Van Woerden and Bokdam approached Jan Groen, who had started Green Organics shortly before and whom they knew from the Nautilus days. “We asked him, ‘Do you want to sell our cauliflower?’” Bokdam recalls. “And he said, ‘I can’t promise anything.’ He came back to us a few weeks later. Could we manage 45 hectares? And we said yes
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as a group.” Over the years, their combined acreage has gradually increased. They now grow summer and autumn cauliflower for eight or nine customers on 100 hectares. They supply most of the produce they sell and arrange for extra
“As a group, we come through when it counts.” Jan Bokdam
