VLAM, the Flanders Agricultural Marketing Board, took Grocery Trader to the Flanders region in Belgium, for a tour of farms, wholesale operations, producers and production facilities.

Jeroen Buyck, CEO of leading Belgian exporter CALSA, says Belgium will be exporting more vegetables to Spain and Italy.

Crops in southern Europe have been damaged by climate volatility, giving Belgium the chance to export more vegetables such as cabbages and leeks, of which Belgium is the world’s number one exporter, sending 60,000-70,000 tonnes overseas every year.

Calsa is looking ahead. That means attention to ecology and local anchoring, as well as a focus on strong partnerships. Most of its growers are longtime suppliers. And its customers are also loyal. Transparency and trust run like a thread through its network, at every level and in every contact.

At Calsa, a grower is more than a supplier. He is a true partner and is jointly responsible for the quality of the end product. For advice or in case of pain points, the grower in turn can call on Calsa for cultivation guidance.

The team provides advice and actively seeks solutions, such as bringing water in during a period of drought.

For both greenhouse cultivation and field vegetables, Calsa is close to the source. The supply from regular growers is supplemented daily by purchases from the Belgian auctions.

The employees have their regular contacts and are welcome visitors. As a pioneer, Calsa helps market products in a good way and offer growers a good future.

Whether to one of the neighbouring countries or on the other side of the world, Calsa delivers fresh, thanks to daily supplies of fruits and vegetables straight from the field. There is no warehousing of goods, but fast logistics and a short, efficient distribution chain.

The family business has since grown significantly, but the personal approach of the early days has remained. Calsa speaks its customers’ language, even literally. French, English or even Russian: the employees master many languages.

And Calsa also perfectly tailors its offerings to customers. For wholesalers, supermarkets and industrial processing.

The beating centre of Calsa is located in Ardooie, right in the middle of the West Flanders fields for field vegetables.

Sister company FMB in Sint-Katelijne-Waver, in turn, is located near the largest region for greenhouse cultivation. The company is also present in Haspengouw, an important region for fruit.

Products include the fine wild mix, a beautiful assortment of at least five cherry tomatoes with a unique colour, taste and shape.

Tomabel truss tomatoes are characterised by smaller fruits, an even red colour and a fine flavour.

Red pointed pepper Sweet Palermo has an exceptionally high natural sugar content and therefore tastes extra sweet. Belgian peppers have a uniform colour and a shiny surface.

San Marzano has a typical elongated shape with few seeds, ideal for sauces and soups.

Ruby Red is a plum tomato. In addition to the distinctive longer fruit, they have a beautiful deep red colour and intense flavour.

Princess truss tomatoes are characterised by large, firm fruits, while Prince is a beautiful, evenly coloured red tomato with a good shelf life.

Ministar is a truss tomato that is somewhere between a cherry truss tomato and a regular truss tomato in terms of size. It has a delicious sweet flavour and deep red colour.

Fresh Trade Belgium

Fresh Trade Belgium represents the importers, exporters and wholesalers, fresh cut companies and logistic service providers active in the fruit and vegetable business in Belgium.

Fresh Trade Belgium has 80 members and is active in the trade of fresh fruit and vegetables.

The group is concerned with food safety, quality, imports, exports, promotion and sustainability.

It represents the industry in front of authorities and stakeholders.

It provides sector-specific training in the areas of storage and shelf life, quality assurance, sustainability, food safety and water management.

Fresh Trade Belgium promotes the health aspect of fruit & veg, with the WHO recommending consumers eat 400g of fruit & veg a day.

It promotes plant products as sustainable foods for a growing world population.

In collaboration with Vlam, Fresh Trade Belgium promotes fruit & veg to its export markets.

The UK is the 4th largest export market for Belgium.

Advantages for Belgium of exporting to the UK include a large availability of quality produce; the geographical proximity which means shorter transport delays, maintaining the freshness of products and the flexibility of family business suppliers.

Challenges include the rules and administrative burden resulting from Brexit such as phytosanitary certificates, checks upon entry and pre-notification for certain produce.

Positive news is that apples, pears, strawberries, carrots and tubers, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and avocados are exempt from certificates and checks.

BelOrta

Fruit and veg cooperative BelOrta works with over 1,250 growers to sell up to 4000 tonnes of produce a day at its daily auction. With a turnover of £519m, BelOrta sells over 170 products, shifting 770 million units a year. It is present in over 75 countries and is a centre of knowledge and expertise, with a continuous focus on innovation.

The company’s Diether Everaerts and Maarten Verhaegen showed Grocery Trader its new apple and pear packhouse in Borgloon. This facility can sort, grade and pack up to 30 tonnes of fruit a day, with machines that check both the external and internal quality.

The tour then moved on to one of BelOrta’s tomato growing warehouses in Putte.

BelOrta concentrates and markets, as a transparent and reliable partner, the fresh fruit and vegetables of its cooperative producers. It wants consumers to enjoy its products in a healthy way.

It cultivates the fruit and veg, growing with expertise, dedication and passion. Its inspectors ensure quality control, and the company provides cold chain storage. It sells the produce at the daily auction and transports to the end consumer in the shortest possible lead time.

The company’s cold chain is short, going from harvesting to the buyer in two days. On the morning of day one, products are harvested, sorted and packaged. That afternoon, the fruit and veg arrives at the BelOrta site, goes through quality control and enters the cold chain in optimal temperature and humidity level. Day two begins with sales, the products being in cold storage up until delivery at the client’s loading dock. In the afternoon of day two, products are transported refrigerated to the distribution centre or shop of the buyer.

Quality control is by BelOrta’s inspectors according to quality requirements written down in separate specifications per vegetable and fruit variety. Grouping is in quality blocks, with quality codes and tracing data applied.

To ensure traceability from field to BelOrta, there is a card with a tracing sticker on each crate. This card includes a grower number, a week and day number, auction number, country of origin, GGN number and more information for buyers via Extranet. From BelOrta to the end consumer, there is a barcode on each pallet which is scanned upon arrival at auction. The pallet is followed throughout cooling and scanned upon delivery at the client’s loading dock.

BelOrta’s storage and cold chain has a total ULO capacity of 91,000 tonnes. There is a maximum usage of sustainable energy sources, namely solar panels. Cooling processes are permanently guided by internal and external professionals.

The company sells its products in a modern auction room which has six digital auction clocks with a real time and world-wide connection. Selling of products is in uniform quality blocks and digital buying by 450 buyers is via a home auction system. Other sales systems are also possible, tailor made in function of product and market type.

BelOrta is a Belgian A-brand for fruit and vegetables. It places fresh fruit and vegetables in the spotlight via a reliable face and brand. It instils consumer confidence based on consistent brand values, with a 360 degree marketing approach, that includes TV, radio, working with content creators, digital and out of home.

BelOrta has 7.5 hectares of warehouse space, through which there are 168 million movements a year. The warehouse uses circular plastic trays and is part of the depot Euro pool system. It uses sustainable cardboard, with 14 box forming machines making 16,500 boxes an hour.

Its box cleaning installation has been operational since 2020 and is optimised for EPS folding trays. The machine cleans 65 million folding trays a year, achieving a yearly reduction of 8,060 tonnes of CO2 emissions and a yearly water saving of approximately 50,000 cubic metres.

The company says cooperative entrepreneurship equals sustainable entrepreneurship. It has a sustainability team, has set targets and annually evaluates its green performance in a sustainability report. The five pillars of its sustainability policy are societal engagement; the well-being of staff; grower-oriented actions; energy, environment and infrastructure; and innovation and process optimisation.

Its goal is sustainability on all domains: energy usage, water usage, CO2 footprint, packaging and food waste.

BelOrta has installed solar panels over different sites with total power of 6MWP. Solar power is maximised in internal processes. Cogeneration has been installed, with total power of 0.5 MW for energy and hot water folding tray cleaning installation. Wind energy is being used, with 2.5MW of power used for a refrigeration project via small windmills. Cogeneration installations have been made at the company’s growers with total power of 246MW.

The company invests heavily in research and development, including new varieties, with flavour of paramount importance. There is also research and development into improvement of cultivation techniques, new packaging, optimisation of logistics processes, automation, consumer behaviour and needs and market trends.

Product improvement is a continuous process. BelOrta followed up and monitored 200 new promising tomato varieties in 2023. Selection is based on criteria including flavour, presentation, shelf life and the cultivation process. The company works in collaboration with research centres and clients.

BelOrta has a new sorting centre at its Borgloon site. The centre has a capacity of 50,000 tonnes a year and has automation in pre-sorting, sorting and packing lines for apples and pears, ensuring cost efficiency. State of the art camera detection enables both external and internal quality control. The centre is tailor-made for the customer in terms of specifications, varieties and packaging.

Pooling and central sorting has the advantages of year-round continuity, homogeneity and sufficient volume to schedule promotions.

 

Comments are closed.

кракен сайткракен сайт кракен ссылкакракен ссылка
For those looking to bet without GamStop restrictions, a Betting site Not on GamStop offers a wide range of sports markets and exclusive promotions.
Discover limitless gaming at a Non GamStop Casino, where you can enjoy exciting games and generous bonuses without GamStop restrictions.


Agreement

To use this website, you must be aged 18 years or over

This will close in 0 seconds