Ted Duijvestijn (59) looks from a room through a large window at thousands of purple-lit tomato plants. Above it, black dots move in the air. They are the smallest 'employees' of the tomato company: bumblebees. The greenhouse is five hectares in size, impressive perhaps for an outsider. For Duijvestijn, it is only one of the company's six greenhouses.
More than sixty years ago, two years before Ted was born, his father Leo Duijvestijn started a tomato cultivation company in the Westland. Now Duijvestijn Tomaten (turnover of almost thirty million in 2023) is fifteen times as large and produces around two hundred million tomatoes per year. Last year it was bought by Cibus Fund II, a British investment fund. The company should serve as a blueprint for expansion abroad. Heat for the greenhouses is extracted from more than two kilometers deep in the earth
Not only the scale of Duijvestijn Tomaten, located on the Komkommerweg in Pijnacker, is striking. The horticultural sector has traditionally been a major consumer of gas. But Duijvestijn was one of the first growers to switch to geothermal energy. Most of the heat for the greenhouses is extracted from more than two kilometers deep in the earth. In addition, electricity comes from 2,500 solar panels on the roof. The grower also managed to avoid wasting tomato surpluses, runs almost entirely on rainwater and tries to reduce green waste with innovative solutions. Ted Duijvestijn remembers picking tomatoes from his youth. Friends, classmates, neighbors – when it was busy everyone came to help. Harvest together, clean, or 'vibrate' the tomatoes (move them by hand to release the pollen).
He was young, about twenty years old, when his father was able to do less and less due to the disease MS. It was better for his health to go to warm Spain, and his mother came along. "At a certain point he couldn't do it anymore. He said: guys, those dreams you have for the company. I can't do it anymore, you have to do it yourselves." At the age of 23, he was officially put in charge of the company, with his younger brothers Peter and Ronald. Later the youngest brother Remco also joined. Gebr. Duijvestijn, the company is called.
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