Isabelle van Doorn, Moleda's new head of strawberry, recently visited the ExpoSE trade fair in Karlsruhe, Germany, where she met many users of the company's Plantsauna system. Thanks to the larger headquarters the team recently moved into, the company now has increased capacity to meet the growing demand for its solutions.
"We had a first this week," Sales Manager Kars Vreeswijk says, before letting his colleague Isabelle explain what he means. Speaking from the fair in Karlsruhe, she tells us with excitement that the Plantsauna showed up in the marketing materials of several exhibitors. "I even spotted photos of it in propagators' brochures! Customers showing that they care about plant health, that is the best marketing we could hope for. We are very happy and proud to see it."
© MoledaIsabelle encountered the Plantsauna at ExpoSE
Plant knowledge
Isabelle didn't know much about the Plantsauna until recently. Trained at Wageningen, she had worked mainly in vertical farming supporting lettuce growers and saw many of them becoming interested in adding strawberries, a shift that was proving to be difficult for those brave enough to attempt it.
"Compared to lettuce, the strawberry supply chain is far more complex. It's much harder to secure reliable starting material year-round. The propagation process takes longer, so if anything goes wrong in the crop or disease pressure increases, the consequences can haunt you for the rest of the season. Working with lettuce is more forgiving, you can start over from seed a few times, while strawberries don't give you that option."
© Moleda
When Moleda needed more plant-science expertise, they brought Isabelle in to work more closely with customers. Kars explains that while the company knows its technology well, they are not plant scientists. Since Isabelle joined, the team has learned much more about how the Plantsauna interacts with different cultivars and what growers need to watch. Kars used to visit many growers himself to see how the treatment improved their crops. With Isabelle's deeper knowledge, the team can now support customers even more effectively.
Using Plantsauna to combat pests
A steady flow of questions from propagators and growers took up most of Isabelle's time during her first few weeks at work as professionals sought information on how to most effectively use the Plantsauna against specific diseases or pests, and at which plant stages it works best. The sauna can treat every type of starting material, from mother plants to cuttings, fresh plants, and frigo plants. Most questions center on Xanthomonas fragariae, Phytophthora, and Neopestalotiopsis, issues that the Plantsauna is already widely used to prevent.
In the United Kingdom, demand has risen over the past year, especially for those dealing with leaf nematode pests who had struggled to find a solution before turning to Moleda's sauna treatment. Kars says this shows how new uses for the system keep emerging, even in strawberry production. "When we heard about the leaf nematode issue, we were very quick to test it, and how effective it was made us very happy."
© Moleda
Plant material enters the Plantsauna
Growers are also seeing results with Plantsauna
Moleda's team grew this year with the addition of a business developer with greenhouse R&D experience and an engineer. With more hands on deck, the company plans to keep improving the technology, explore uses in other crops, and scale production to meet rising demand for Plantsaunas. "We have twice as many orders as a year ago," Kars says. "As we grow, we want to keep our service level high, so expanding the team was essential."
In the Netherlands, the company first targeted strawberry propagators. Abroad, production growers are now adopting the technology as well, including growers in the United Kingdom, North America, Mexico, and Belgium.
© Moleda
The new Moleda branch in Veldhoven
A clean start is good for everyone
What matters most is that more companies now recognize the preventive value of using the Plantsauna against diseases and pests. A sauna treatment gives both growers and propagators a clean start.
In the Netherlands, no production growers use the Plantsauna yet, but Moleda expects that to change. Isabelle and Kars see plenty of room to grow in name recognition and communication, which made Isabelle's experience at ExpoSE especially encouraging. They also like that growers are beginning to ask plant suppliers whether young plants have been treated in the sauna. "In the end, that's good for the whole market," Kars says.
At the International Soft Fruit Conference on 8 January 2026 in Den Bosch in the Netherlands, Moleda will share more information about the benefits of using the Plantsauna on fresh plants and frigo plants.
© MoledaIsabelle in the greenhouse with Simen Myhrene, one of the founders of Moleda
For more information:
Moleda
[email protected]
www.moleda.nl
