This week the Dutch trade show HortiContact took place in Netherlands. Next week we'll publish a full photo report from the three-day show, today we already share some insights from the show.
Innovation award goes to Benfried
HortiContact Innovation Award
Benfried walked away with the HortiContact Innovation Award on the final evening. Benfried, together with its Italian producer Bioplanet, brought the parasitic wasp Trissolcus Basalis onto the market. The parasitic wasp combats Nezera bugs.
Apart from the nine nominees, there was also plenty of news to see at other exhibitors, although HortiContact, despite the changes with more exuberant stand construction, still remains primarily a nice low-threshold relationship fair.
New and familiar faces at Paskal
Pressure on the labor market
There's a hunt for good people everywhere and the horticultural industry is no different. The fair provided an excellent opportunity to speak to new or familiar faces for the first time in their new role after a move to another company. At some companies, as will be seen in next Monday's large photo report, almost complete fair teams were refreshed with new faces.
Also many automation solutions were presented, both for in the greenhouse as the well-known tom-system, as well as post harvest, such as the recently launched robotic solutions from Gearbox.
Team Agrifast and HortiWare
LED o'clock in Netherlands
A couple of years ago, the trade show was filled with greenhouse builders. As the market has slowed down, the floor is now occupied by technical suppliers. Mainly, it was LED'o clock at HortiContact. Over a dozen of high-tech suppliers were present to show their new fixtures and to explain why their solution was different than the other ones. Of course we'll also share these with you on Monday.
Innovations and alternatives
Besides personnel novelties, new logos and sometimes self-built stands, there were also new products and innovations. Running through the editorial notepad we passed, among other things, new substrate mixes (with peat alternatives), new (organic) biostimulants and new solar panel projects with new techniques, such as anchors or smart click systems. Also solutions to minimise the horticultural waste were presented on the show.
Robots, AI - all the cool stuff could be found at Gearbox
New varieties
But also along resistances in even more varieties (the cocktail tomatoes at Enza Zaden go into practice with HR resistance to ToBRFV this year), a Swiss-made salt battery and a sensor to measure biofilm in pipes. The latter two innovations, in turn, come from relatively new names in the industry (Durable ME and Factory Lab). The fair is always a good time to get to know such companies.