Growers join forces to add value to residual streams

Growers associations Fossa Eugenia, Koninklijke Coöperatieve Telersvereniging Zuidoost-Nederland (ZON) and SunFresh and LLTB jointly take the initiative to establish the Horticultural Residual Streams Platform. Together they unite knowledge and expertise to achieve (higher) valorization of horticultural waste streams and thus contribute to a circular earnings model for their member entrepreneurs. In this way Platform Horticultural Waste streams meets the growing social and political need for a more sustainable, circular agricultural and horticultural sector.

From 'waste' to value creation

Platform Horticultural Waste Streams has set itself the goal of creating new, better and faster value chains for growers, with economic feasibility, value creation and other benefits for farmers as the main drivers. Ad Gubbels, grower and SunFresh board member: "Plant residues, non-deliverable fruits and other residual streams such as rope and foil are still seen as waste that you have to pay to dispose of. It is time for a different approach: what can we do with these residual flows? In this way we take our responsibility as entrepreneurs, reduce our costs and increase our return. Circularity is increasingly in the capillaries of our business operations; it gives us the license to producee."

At the end of the growing season, many green residue streams are created on a bell pepper farm, such as here at Fresh Peppers in Baarlo. Photo: Pim Deuling (Bluehub) and Ad Gubbels (SunFresh / Fresh Peppers).

Challenges circularity calls for clout

In order to prevent fragmentation of attention and efforts, there is a need for an umbrella approach. On a national scale, the Horticultural Residue Streams Platform is one of the largest collaborations of growers and horticulturalists that has organized the supply side in the field of residue stream valorization. In this way, the Horticultural Residual Flows Platform creates the desired size to be a serious discussion partner for requesting parties. In the start-up phase, we are working closely with the Netherlands Foundation for Innovation in Glasshouse Horticulture (SIGN), which is participating as an expertise partner and is bringing in several new value chains in collaboration with the BioTreatCenter. Susanne Görtz, board member of LLTB, explains why an integral approach is so important: "By uniting growers we increase our strength, together we really have something to offer. We work concretely and visibly with entrepreneurs to make a difference in both the short and long term. In this way, an earnings model is realized within circular horticulture."

On the way to new value chains

In the short term, Platform Horticultural Residual Streams, whose executive consortium consists of agricultural consultancy Arvalis and innovation agency Bluehub, wants to set up five to ten new chains that will add value to residual streams in a variety of ways. The project is based on close partnerships between growers on the one hand and buyers of (inorganic) waste streams such as energy, feed, food, building materials and the extraction of content on the other, and may also include solution providers who support the treatment and processing of waste streams. Platform Horticultural Residual Streams would like to get in touch with market parties who want to play a role in this.