search.noResults

search.searching

note.createNoteMessage

search.noResults

search.searching

orderForm.title

orderForm.productCode
orderForm.description
orderForm.quantity
orderForm.itemPrice
orderForm.price
orderForm.totalPrice
orderForm.deliveryDetails.billingAddress
orderForm.deliveryDetails.deliveryAddress
orderForm.noItems
SMC Upcycled


On 12 September, the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs, Henk Kamp, officially opened Upcycling Gemert B.V. A milestone in the conversion of spent mushroom compost into useful heat and a valuable fertiliser and fuel source.


By Roel Dreve C


hampignonkwekerij Gemert, owned by the van den Boomen family, features regularly in the media with positive news; two examples being the Mushroom Farm of the Year award (2004), and as the innovator of a logistic system to sort mushrooms (2007). The past years have been dedicated to developing a new procedure to upgrade the spent mushroom compost from its own farm into a sought after soil improver, while at the same time making enormous savings on gas consumption (see also the article in MB66). Disposing of SMC is usually difficult and expensive in The Netherlands. Export of SMC to Germany costs 12 euro per ton, while you’re mainly (60-70%) transporting water. The company already won the first prize in the Biobased Economy Competition East-Brabant for upcycling the residual waste flows on its own farm. After a trial period, a brand-new installa- tion was built on site and the time arrived to celebrate the opening with an explanation of the process and a tour of the plant.


‘The gas tap on the farm has been totally closed for the


past six months and we can now move the company forward’


14 MUSHROOM BUSINESS


‘Enough talking, let’s play football’ Kees de Gooijer, board chair of the Top Consor- tium for Knowledge & Innovation (TKI) Biobased Economy opened the mini symposium for the approximately one hundred guests. TKI –BBE is responsible for implementing research agendas that contribute towards the transition of the economy from fossil fuel-based to one that uses biomass to fuel non-food applications. Accor- ding to de Gooijer, biomass is the largest energy carrier in the Netherlands, and upgrading spent mushroom compost, a process making huge strides in the form of Upcycling Gemert, is exemplary in this concept. He congratulated the van den Boomen family with their achievement, which he ranks somewhere between ‘I have a dream’ (research) and ‘Enough talking, let’s play football’ (no-nonsense, SME attitude, freely translated words of football coach Ernst Happel). Pieter van den Boomen, co-owner of the mushroom farm (mechanised harvest) with his parents. welcomed Mr Kamp and the guests and explained about the trials drying spent mushroom compost, generating heat, the pilot with the sea-freight container and the subsidy application submitted to TKI. “The gas tap on the farm has been closed for the past six months (now 200,000 cubic metres/year) and we can now move the company forward”, said Pieter, who added this solution could be a possible answer for the Minister to compensate for the reduction in natural gas extraction in Groningen province.


The process


Henk van den Boomen, Hans’ brother, a specialist in the field of composting and an organic residue flow advisor, then explained the workings of the process. After the mushrooms have been harvested mechanically, the eight growing rooms are emptied. The casing soil is removed from the


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48