New Brightlands residents ready for collaboration and innovation

Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo recently welcomed three new residents: Vitacress Real, Scelta Insight and Frankfort & Koning. Established names in agrofood, who want to keep developing with their companies. The perspective of innovation and collaboration encouraged them to take a place on the campus.

New boxes for rent were built this year at the Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo. More than sixty companies and institutions have now established themselves on the Venlo campus that is entirely focused on healthy food. Vitacress Real, Scelta Insight and Frankfort & Koning are the most recent residents.

Innovation Hub

The headquarters of Vitacress Real is opposite the Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo. So it's a short trip to the new 'Vitacress Real Innovation Hub' on the campus. This is the place where director Ralph Coenen hopes to establish new collaborations to further develop his company. "Right now it's still a kind of flex space for us, we're now working out a structure for the innovation hub. Once that's in place, we'll start developing new things from there. On the campus you can get away from the delusion of the day that is inevitable when you work with fresh produce. You meet new people, learn to look at things differently. That is very valuable if you want to keep innovating."

Higher goal

Vitacress Real wants to stay on top of the latest developments so that the company can grow. This goes hand in hand with the higher goal: to introduce more people to the healthy potential of fresh herbs and natural seasonings. In that context, Ralph Coenen also sees opportunities for cooperation with other Brightlands campuses:

"We want to inspire people to do more with fresh herbs. We want to inspire people to do more with fresh herbs, because it's a super sexy product that fits in with our times, in which health and vitality are increasingly important. That's why I find the research Maastricht University is doing on the campus so interesting. More and more knowledge is emerging about what eating certain foods does to your body and your health. Fruits and vegetables are healthy, but herbs can also have a healing effect. We can learn a lot about the medicinal effects of herbs."

Cooperation with the Brightlands Smart Services Campus in Heerlen is also something Coenen is keen on. There he could discuss the possibilities of gathering data for quality control in the store. And at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus in Geleen, interesting things are happening around packaging that are interesting for Vitacress Real. But those are ideas for the future. The first step now is the development of the Innovation Hub in Venlo.

Other newcomers

Another newcomer to the Brightlands Greenport Campus is Scelta Inside - the spin-off of parent company Scelta Mushrooms - which focuses on the contents of the mushroom. Erik Bongers of Scelta Inside explains, "As of December 16, we are on campus, a great place where a lot is happening. Here we are among the companies who, like us, are engaged in healthy food and innovation.

Frankort & Koning is an international trading company in fruit and vegetables, with the world as its source and Europe as its market. They have occupied the Brightlands campus in Venlo since September 1, with the aim of further developing their ICT applications. Patrick Langeveld is on the IT Development team. "The campus is an inspiring place with a lot of useful ICT partners with whom we might be able to spar and collaborate in the future, so that as a company we can further develop our software: from product registration and robotization to track & trace. The goal is to make the work easier for our customers and employees, and to continue to grow as a company."

Source: Brightlands