‘THE QUALITY OF THE CARROTS DETERMINES THE CAPACITY OF THE PROCESSING LINE’ IN 2018 BREIDDE VAN WOERDEN IN 2018,UIT VAN WOERDEN FLEVO FLEVO MET EEN EIGEN EXPANDED ITS OPERATION, BIOWORTELSPOELERIJ MET ADDING AN ORGANIC CARROT RINSINGNIEUWE PLANT HYDROKOELER. HET BRACHT AND HYDROCOOLER. THAT WAS KANSEN MET ZICH MEE. ‘MAAR’,GOOD ZEGT FOR BUSINESS, SAYS STEFAN VAN STEFAN VAN WOERDEN MET INTUSSEN WOERDEN. BUT WITH A FEWOP YEARS EEN PAAR JAAR ERVARING ZAK, OF HE NOW KNOWS: ‘JE EXPERIENCE DOET DIT ER NIET ZOMAAR “YOU DON’TBIJ.’ JUST DO THIS AS A EVENTJES SIDELINE.”
Stefan’s parents took over the family farm in 1988 from his grandparents, who started the business when they moved to the Flevopolder in the early 1960s. In 1994, the Van Woerdens made the switch to organic growing. They grew many different crops, but carrots didn’t become part of their operation until the beginning of this century. Carrots arrived together with Stefan himself, who had just finished school and started working in his parents’ company.
Anthoinet and Stefan van Woerden
After adding a shed for onsite storage, the Van Woerdens expanded their acreage of carrots. The farm’s other crops were mainly onions and potatoes. It was a strong, healthy, specialized business when Stefan and his partner Anthoinet took the reins from his parents in 2017. The third generation, full of fresh ideas and ambitions, >>
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wanted to add their own touch to the company. Within a year they had built a modern rinsing plant and bought two neighbouring farms, partly to have enough room for processing, partly to keep up with crop rotation. “The thing is,” Van Woerden says, looking back, “I realized that a fairly large amount of ‘dirty product’ was being sent abroad—a lot of carrots with soil. You’re transporting unnecessary kilos, which to me doesn’t fit with the whole idea of working organically. Besides, our carrots were being shipped all over Europe at that point, and we saw that the demand for ‘clean’ carrots was growing. That was ultimately what made us decide to set up a processing line. You should see our carrots now! At 5 in the morning a carrot comes off the land. At 6 it is washed, polished, cooled and sorted and by 7 o’clock it goes into the cooling cell at 3 degrees Celsius. Super fresh. It’s amazing to watch.”
Two lines
By 2018 the firm had two organic rinsing lines, one for carrots and one for table potatoes. A shed was then built around the two lines, as it were, with its own conveyor belt to bring in the ‘dirty’ carrots, its own toilet block, lunchroom,
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“It’s not an easy job to get the lines up and running." Stefan van Woerden
lines of operation and so on. “It was no easy job to get the plant up and running. Take the certifications alone. We are certified for BRC Food in Grade AA. In our experience, it takes half a full-time equivalent (FTE) just to organize that certification. ” Even now, the time commitment is still a large one. The line must be completely cleaned once a day, even if only a few crates have been run. The machinery is all stainless steel in accordance with food safety requirements, which makes it hygienic to use, but also more expensive to maintain.
‘Quality determines capacity’
Despite the front-end investments, Stefan and Anthoinet have no regrets about the expansion. The rinsing has been going well since day one, not only for Van Woerden Flevo but for their fellow growers, who soon started coming to them to use their facilities. As a result, one employee was soon able to work full-time on the rinsing line.
growing. That makes us very flexible. Our buyers like that, and so do our fellow growers who have their produce rinsed here.”
Further developments
Van Woerden Flevo has grown Bejo varieties from the start. They begin the year with the early varieties, then switch to Nairobi and Nerac. “The second is an old-fashioned carrot, but it’s so consistent that it’s still a favourite. I do expect that Bejo, with all its expertise in organic growing, will keep developing new varieties, especially in the early segment and in storage. And that’s how it should be. The price of land is going up, so here too we have to raise the bar. Yield and quality must be higher in order to compensate for the rising cost of farming.”
The Van Woerdens left some growing room when they built the rinsing line. “We still have space for extra capacity. But we’re watching and waiting. The market keeps making higher demands on quality. It sets a high bar – a little too high, I sometimes think. It shouldn’t really matter how many kilos go into a big bag or a container. Yet there is more loss with the second. That’s a shame, absolutely. Still, you have to take that into account. That’s why the question of quality sets a limit on the capacity of the processing line.” Incidentally, not all carrots go through the rinser. “If a customer wants carrots straight from the field, we can supply that, no problem. We’re not here to keep the rinsing line running at full capacity: Our first focus is on
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