Dutch tomato grower expands Algae project

In 2010 Dutch tomato grower Geert van Adrichem and Pinc Agro's Peter Post spoke about the continuity of greenhouse vegetable businesses. They wondered if it was possible to produce based on demand resulting in more efficiency. Now, six years later, there’s a ‘proof of concept’ with algae cultivation in greenhouses and chain partners. How did they get this far?

Because of his experience as a tomato grower Van Adrichem has the knowledge to optimize cultivation to the finest detail, under controlled conditions, to consistently produce high quality. Based on these strengths and the rise of algae cultivation they decided to investigate the potential for demand-driven algae cultivation.

Van Adrichem and PinC Agro consulted their networks and were led to young cattle feed manufacturer Sloten (part of Nutreco). Sloten was looking for a protein replacement for soybean meal for quality animal feed, sustainably grown and with higher quality guarantees. This way demand and supply were brought together.

"The parties discussed the common goal, roles, type of algae, cultivation and processing. With the action plan sponsors were approached to obtain financing. And they succeeded. The first algae reactor at Van Adrichem was started in November 2014. In 2015 a second type reactor was launched. With this reactor it was tested whether it was possible to grow algae on a greenhouse wall. Unfortunately, this reactor was found to contaminate quickly."

The first type of reactor offered a lot of perspective. Van Adrichem has now been producing algae for about eighteen months. They’re now working on scaling up. They want to set up approximately 2,000 m2 of the greenhouse for the cultivation of algae. In cultivation more optimization steps are expected to be possible. There is also already talk of new customers. This is a requirement to scale up. Contact with Sloten will be maintained. Focal points here are experience with algae on animal feed and processing optimization.