Hans Nendels at the new factory.
In principle, Kekkilä-BVB makes four basic blends, that are ready to use. There are mix- tures for export, manual picking farms, mecha- nical harvesting farms and a special blend. These blends are kept on the other side of the hall, separated by a partial wall. The material is supplied via conveyor belts from the mixing line. “The basic blends are used to make custo- mer-specific casing soils. Here too is a mixing line with various bunkers, and the material passes through another screen to remove any further impurities. Two, or may be even more, basic blends are combined using the automatic mixing line, and the right amount of water is added. Traceability is also extremely important to us. During the time we were experiencing problems with Pseudomonas Gingeri (another form of bacterial blotch) we sharpened our focus on the raw materials, and discovered that changing one raw material could make the difference between problems occurring or not.”
Quality “Our customers let us know how we are perfor- ming. We aim to supply a product of consistent quality that satisfies the requirements of our customers all year round. However, each customer has their own specific wishes and expectations of what good casing soil is, so in practical terms we produce a wide variety of types of casing soil that all marginally differ. Our quality has now been good since about around six weeks. The new factory gives us another benefit compared with Grubbenvorst. The installation of a new loading line means we can load the trailers much faster in succession. Our output capacity is 5 cubic metres a minute, so we can load a trailer in 8 minutes (15 at Grubbenvorst). There were 2 loading lines in Grubbenvorst that could fill 2 trailers simulta- neously, but the lines were one behind the other, so both trailers had to leave to make room for the next ones. Now both loading lines are side by side, so two trailers can be loaded at the same time and the other trailers don’t have to wait. This is particularly important on Fridays when we have to supply almost all the mechanical harvesting farms that are our customers in the Netherlands. We then operate from 5 am to midday to load all the trailers. We can measure the loading data. The bulk density and moisture content are relevant parameters as far as we are concerned, and the growers provide feedback. This allows us to gather a lot of key data that helps us sup- ply an even more consistent quality product year-round.” The company is organising an invitation-only event for customers on Saturday 6 May, when the new production site will be officially opened. At the Dutch Mushroom Days, Kekkilä-BVB can be found in stand 38.
‘Our customers
let us know how we are
performing’
The loading lines can fill a trailer in eight minutes.
A view of the section of the hall where the raw materials are stored and mixed in a mixing line with 11 bunkers.
MUSHROOM BUSINESS 9
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