At tomato grower The Valley , they are testing a harvesting robot. Joost van der Voort talks about it in Elsevier, as the magazine fires eleven questions at the grower. Among other things, Joost explains how different the job of a tomato grower is nowadays, compared to Grandpa's time. "We say we work hard, but they used to work really hard," he says.
The Valley was formed a few years back following a merger. About that, Joost says that "the honeymoon period", where everything is "cool and awesome", just like in a "marriage", is now over. "After two years, things become more serious and now we have to put more energy into it to keep everything right. But I think that's normal in a merger."
The tomato growing company of Joost, cousin Thom, Jack Groenewegen and Marcel van den Berg grows in the Netherlands. Will it stay that way? Joost says a country study was carried out by the growers to look at growing outside the Netherlands. The outcome is that there are challenges everywhere. Less productivity in Hungary, expensive energy in Germany or a lack of labor in Scandinavia. "We are in a very good place in the Netherlands and that's why we are here," he said.
Source: Elsevier