the new part there are eight tiers of shelving. We work according to a four-week cropping cycle with two flushes. Every Friday we fill five growing rooms of 1075 and two of 1690 square metres. The compost, 750 tons weekly, is all supplied by Walkro Belgium. The filling weight is 85 kg per square metre, filled using our own filler, and we use casing soil from Kekkila-BVB. The spawn strains used are Sylvan 512 and 520. On Mondays we cut the 1st flushes in the new rooms and in two of the old ones and on Tues- days harvest the remaining three old growing rooms. Then we pick the 2nd flushes a week later on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The new part is emptied on Wednesdays, the old part on Thursdays.”
The expansion of the packing hall, which started the ball rolling. Okechamp
The Jacobs family made a conscious choice to supply all its production to just a single party: Okechamp in Velden, the former Lutèce. “We always had a good relationship with Lutèce, and have a strong impression that the takeover of the company by Okechamp has improved the situation. The Okechamp group, headquartered in Poland, is also active in growing. You notice that involvement in everything. They under- stand us even better than before. Supplying exclusively to Okechamp reduces the risks and gives more security. That’s extremely impor- tant to us, especially in view of the high invest- ment and the extra mouths the company needs to feed. Because we have a guaranteed customer to supply, we could take the plunge and expand. And as parents we are really proud that our boys wanted to join us! So that means you need a larger farm.”
Christiaens
Christiaens in Horst constructed and installed the new buildings as a turn-key project. They had also built the older part of the farm back
in1998. John Jacobs: “We were really only intending to expand the harvesting hall. We are a loyal customer at Christiaens , and after a couple of chats the plans were finalised quite quickly. Initially, we wanted a slightly larger building to accommodate our harvesting activi- ties. Shortly afterwards , the idea of Stan and Bart joining us started to come into focus, so together we examined the feasibility of signifi- cantly increasing the growing surface area. Christiaens was a pro-active contributor to our plans, Okechamp acquired Lutèce, which create a more secure sales channel for our mushrooms, so, in a manner of speaking, the lights turned green for go. In other circumstan- ces we probably wouldn’t have expanded the business like this, but in this case we literally and figuratively had the future in mind.”
New concept
For many years, Christiaens has supplied the growers with machinery, conveyor belts and other equipment, except for the grading line
‘Because we have a guaranteed customer to
supply, we could take the plunge and expand’
The belt with neatly positioned individual mushrooms...
...which are ejected if they are soiled with casing.
MUSHROOM BUSINESS 21
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