Picker working in the growing room. The picking lorry has extra lights to make picking easier.
Outside in the corridor, the mushrooms are placed in the packaging.
early stage and placing the initial focus on the actual picking technique. What do you pick, what do you leave on the bed? The beds are graze picked anyway, so even if you miss something first time round, you automatically come back to the bed later on. The system, and also the length of the growing room, only permits one picker on each side. That equates to eight pickers who pick 100 square metres of bed a day. And contrary to what many people think, we do not literally pick with two hands simultaneously, but using the left and the right hand, so it does involve both hands. The focus of the brain shifts from left to right so there is no need to look at two places at the same time. It is also extremely crucial for the picker to adopt the correct posture, so that he or she can maintain the position for a long time, a straight back, a straight neck and a relaxed shoulder position. Posture is something I try to pay close attention to. The technology now offers almost too many variables for adjust- ment, but simplicity is key." What about the picking speed? Van Gerwen: “An inexperienced picker who simply picks the bed, so uses both hands to remove the mushrooms and place them on the belt, can reach a performance of between120 and 130 kilos per hour within a week. The beds are pic- ked several times a day, and we always look ahead. Peace and quiet. Things are hectic out- side the growing room at the moment, because it is almost impossible for the second picker to keep up with the pace of taking the mushrooms from the belt and placing them in trays. But
that's an area of work in progress. We also tur- ned on the radio for the first time at work – that really helps!"
Labour costs versus ergonomics Marco Deckers, co-owner of the Deckers group of companies, explains how he reached the decision to build this farm. “in 2004 I built my own farm, Marco Deckers KG, with growing rooms of 1296 square metres. There are now 24 of them. Back then, we already prioritised har- vest optimisation. The beds are 120 cm wide instead of 140 cm, the lower bed is positioned higher. We also had the idea of a belt running parallel to the beds, but it wasn't financially feasible. Using a tray line wasn't profitable other, too much vulnerable technology in the room. We also trialled a single layer system in one of the small rooms on my father's old farm, but production and quality deteriorated too much. What we needed was more layers, with tried and trusted mushroom growing techno- logy. Ger Peeters was the person who introdu- ced us to GTL Europe, and we also visited Marc van Doremae le to see his approach. It all looked promising, so we didn't’ wait long before deci- ding. The market for mushrooms is good in Germany, but labour costs are spiralling out of control."
Deckers continues: “The advantage of this sys- tem as you see it here is the lack of technology in the growing room itself. The growing rooms can still be cooked out. At harvesting, the door opening onto the corridor replaced by a kind of
Ò MUSHROOM BUSINESS 47
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 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
