Flevo Food Network is an association for Flevoland’s food entrepreneurs such as farmers, producers and merchants. They want to learn from each other and work together on innovations and the marketing of Flevoland’s products. One of the goals is to develop a Flevoland brand or quality mark for regional products to increase sales. With DAFs (old Dutch car brand, now a classic car) they drove the Flevoland Food Tour and visited several companies.
Verhage – food experience
Family business Verhage not only grows apples, pears and cherries, but also sells their homemade and other regional products. They sell them in their own shop and in a roadside vending machine. A visit to this company is a true experience: walking through pear and cherry trees Verhage staff tells you about their efforts to build a bee colony. The visit ends at their own distillery. By taking courses and doing traineeships Mr. Verhage is developing his skills and his business. The company now sells 90% of its produce to wholesalers and the individual customers come from all over the country.
Lof – efficient and up-to-date production
In the 1960’s the founder of ‘Flevolof’, the parent company of Lof, was one of the pioneers who moved to Flevoland. He took his chances and established a successful company that sells chicory (‘lof’ in Dutch) all over the world. The visitor still sees the history in the nursery.
The chicory is grown in the dark in boxes stacked several meters high: verticle farming in the polder. The company is also very sustainable: it has solar panels on the roof, collects water for the washing proces and re-uses the heat from the coolers.
Farm Vredeveld – care and farming
This family company combines a livestock and produce farm, centres for the disabled, the elderly and children in day-care, and a shop. The family buckles down to it and seizes every opportunity, except those that lessen the visitor’s experience.
Hofweb – logistic system for local food
To sell their products locally four farmers started a company and looked for a distribution system. Lambertus Zijlstra, one of the owners, bought a system, that he saw while he was doing a traineeship at a company. After successful crowdfunding among their customers they re-developed it into an efficient sales and distibution system for local food. Hofweb is soon going to deliver to customers throughout the Netherlands by a special food delivery service from Post NL (the Dutch post and parcel service).
Worldexpo Floriade 2022 – business opportunities
Flevo Food Network sees opportunities in the Floriade Almere in 2022, and would like to sell their products there. Jan-Willem Griep, one of the Floriade Ltd directors, told them about the Worldexpo and its theme: Feeding the city. He explained that although not yet completely clear how the expo terrain will be organized, the event has already started with all sorts of activities. In the coming years opportunities will arise and the Flevo Food Network will get started with them.
Interreg FoodChains 4 EU – learning from each other
The province of Flevoland is well known for its healthy food grown in open ground. The agricultural sector consists of companies of various sizes: from large ones producing for the world market to small ones combining many activities. The entrepreneurs in the Flevo Food Network can learn from each other’s business models and approaches. Most companies are facing low regional reputation and sales are low in spite of their local outlets. The Province of Flevoland and Aeres UAS (University of Applied Sciences) support the Network by exchanging knowledge and experience on local branding with the other European regions of the Interreg project FoodChains 4 EU.
