YOUR INDUSTRY
BALANCING ACT FOR EGGPLANT PRODUCER Geoff Lewis
Photography; Trefor Ward
Juliette de Brianson twisting stems and pruning side shoots to encourage eggplants to grow vertically
Working with plants that can grow to nearly 5m tall, New Zealand’s largest producer of eggplant faces a series of balancing acts in growth factors, energy, markets and labour. CSM Ltd or Forestburg Eggplants is based at Dairy Flat north of Auckland and produces the large majority of the national crop. Eggplant – so called in North America, also known as aubergine in the United Kingdom – is an Old World member of the nightshade (Solanaceae) family to which its New World cousins tomatoes, potatoes, chilli peppers and tobacco belong. Regarded as a fruit, it is believed to have been first domesticated in Southeast Asia. For Forestburg Eggplants, the story begins when managing director Kees van der Eijk and business partner Svend Pedersen decided to buy an 22 NZGROWER : APRIL 2022
existing glasshouse and hydroponic operation at Dairy Flat in 2001. At the time, that included a 3.5m-high 4,000 sqm glasshouse and packhouse which were about five years old. They began growing capsicum. But five years later after getting a virus infection in one of the glasshouses, they decided to grow something else in that section for the remaining part of that season. “We had to find another crop. Everyone was growing tomatoes or cucumbers, so we had a look around the supermarkets and realised no one was doing eggplant. So we planted that and it was so successful that the next year we added another greenhouse and then another.“ Forestburg Eggplants now has around 43,000 sqm under glass. Working with Dutch greenhouse designers and following international developments, the structures have progressively got taller as indoor growing technologies developed into 7m-high cathedrals of glass.
80%
THE COMPANY IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ABOUT 80 PERCENT OF THE COUNTRY’S EGGPLANT PRODUCTION The company is responsible for about 80 percent of the country’s eggplant production and provides its product to MG Marketing in Auckland which distributes to centres all over New Zealand. Production varies depending on the light and heat levels.
