THE NETHERLANDS
The work corridor on the new farm.
John Jacobs with his sons in a new growing room with an emerging 1st flush.
‘We wanted to have just one
name we could call for
everything
concerning the expansion’
which comes from Verbruggen and the harves- ting machines and stump removers supplied by Van den Top and Limbraco . So they have a close relationship. Edwin van Rensch from Chris- tiaens explains. “The Jacobs family is a very loyal customer, and we were very keen to be involved in this project. We are geographically close, the communication lines are very short. The contract was signed in January 2022 and the first growing room was filled in September. Of course, we always aim for clarity and excellence, but we are only human.” Stan Jacobs adds: “We wanted to have just one name we could call for everything concerning the expansion. Technically you can really rely on Christiaens. Funnily enough, I was an intern for my thesis at one of their big competitors - GTL Europe. They are also a very good company, but given our long-standing relationship with Christiaens they deserved to get the contract.” Van Rensch: “We installed a heat pump here which allows heating using water below 40° C and special coils, which are standard today. And we also installed a new type of fan so just one fan can serve large growing rooms like these.
It’s a centrifugal fan, but expels air on two sides. This reduces the energy consumption.”
Click
Another key player in the working partnership is Jeroen Pennings, who is employed by Christiaens but also lives in the same village as the Jacobs family. Van Rensch: “Jeroen is important to us when projects like this are being realised. There’s a good click with the Jacobs family. We hold a project meeting once a week with project mana- ger Rob Arts and Jeroen , and everyone can bring their ideas and any issues to the table. For exam- ple, we work with sub-contractors, and that can sometimes throw up some minor problems. And don’t forget , the corona pandemic might effecti- vely be over, but the aftermath and the shortage of labour and parts are still presenting challen- ges. So we’re pleased with how this project pro- gressed.” John Jacobs comments: “That weekly meeting was a great idea. Christiaens solved any mistakes or problems to our satisfaction.”
Innovation The new climate units have one fan with two air outlets. 22 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
“Another innovative development we were eager to have” according to Stan Jacobs, “ is a system that automatically detects traces of casing on the stumps and trims them mechanically. We now have a belt which conveys all the mushrooms to the grading line. The mushrooms are placed individually at high speed on this belt and a camera detects whether there are remains of casing left on the stumps. These mushrooms are diverted to another belt where a separate machine trims the stumps, leaving clean mushrooms. This system saves a lot of time and effort, so we can process 20 tons of mushrooms per hour.” Anyone interested in seeing how this all works can visit the Jacobs family during an open day on Sunday 30 April, when many other agricultural companies will be welcoming the public.
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