The largest players are in green peppers, coarse bunches or high wire cucumbers. Some breeders must dream of it, but not Eminent Seeds. They harbour special products in their assortment and want to expand them in quality and numbers.
Jolande Salemans and Peter van Duin
"We don't need to be the biggest," says Peter van Duin. At the end of last year he started Eminent Seeds as the main person responsible for breeding a seed production. He has a clear focus on this. "One of the main points is continuing the diversity in colours in all varieties. In cherries, for instance, it is about the tastiest and best, but also the colour. Final buyers such as supermarket can define themselves in this way," he says. "We see the demand for more colour in the market in other products too, such as our baby pepper."
Variation in colour for now and in the future. Pictured, the diverse second and third screening
The baby pepper is traditionally a large product for Eminent. The breeding company of former pepper growers Ted and Jan van Heijningen became big on the Tinkerbell. "The varieties reach a higher level over the years. We work on resistances, yield and product consistency." In the caspicum family there is also another of the company's important products to be found: the Habanero Tijuana, which can be grown in the northern European climate zone. "Previously it wasn't possible to grow habaneros in cooler climates. We focused our breeding activities specifically on this, but some varieties can also be used more widely."
Presentation of the Eminent products. The showcase took place in the Best Fresh Group building, which Eminent Seeds, like Eminent Food, is a part of. The collaboration with sales parties and trade offers the company opportunities to immediately test products..
Special, and especially difficult
It's the products that the large breeders just don't get round to, according to Peter - because it's an expensive and difficult job for too small a product. "We work with relatively small products. That makes registering a variety a relatively expensive job. You want to make sure it's good before you start." The special varieties that Eminent works with are absolutely not suitable for commercial cultivation in the first instance. "The cultivation suitability leaves something to be desired. Crossing over into this takes time," he clarifies. The company also noticed this in Tomberry's, the well known pearl tomatoes in red and yellow. "The basis is there and the market responds positively. We are working on improving the market and the plant here. We want to make it crop friendly. Now it's very exclusive," Peter laughs. "That's good, of course, but there's space to grow."
As should be clear, it is all about developing new varieties and improving the existing varieties at Eminent. Right? Peter doesn't think so. Getting the GSPP certificate was an important step, according to the breeder. Eminent Seeds also supplies various heirloom tomatoes. Despite the fact that they don't have these OP's (varieties without patent) exclusively in their assortment, the enthusiasm is considerable. One of the causes of this is that the company is GSPP certified. "We also test all the seeds twice for both pepino and clavibacter. We are unique in this. We want to be the best in the class in this, a guarantee for plant growers and normal growers alike," says Jolanda Salemans, responsible for the quality control. "Especially in heirloom varieties the threat of disease is real. You don't want a relatively small product causing big problems. We want to remove this worry."
For more information:
Eminent Seeds
ABC Westland 118
2685 DB Poeldijk
T: +31 174 214570
www.eminentseeds.nl