Dronten gets its own vertical lettuce factory

Staay Food Group is building gigantic new business premises in Dronten for subsidiary Fresh Care Convenience. The 'city farm' is part of the new construction project. Lettuce is grown for vegetable cutting in special climate chambers.

The lettuce factory involves an investment of 8 million euros. The 30.000 square meter building of Fresh Care Convenience is already standing in Dronten. Construction of the lettuce factory will start in July, it writes Financial Daily.

In vertical racks - nine stories high - lettuce is grown on coconut plugs in water. LED lighting ensures the growth of heads of red lettuce, arugula and curly lettuce. A head of 150 to 200 grams can be grown in four weeks. This takes ten to fourteen weeks with a conventional cultivation method. The first harvest will take place this year.

The lettuce factory is still a test set-up, measuring a total of 1000 square meters. Good for 300 tons of lettuce on an annual basis. Staay has purchased a total of 32 hectares of land in Dronten. Future plans for a production of 1.000 tons of lettuce are already on the table. The number of employees will increase due to the expansion from 350 to 500 people.

The vegetables are used in meal salads that the company sells to supermarket chains in Germany. The cost price of a head of lettuce from the lettuce factory is twice as high compared to a conventional head. According to Staay, however, consumers are willing to pay that amount because the lettuce was produced safely and efficiently.

There is a good chance that the Staay factory will be the first commercial project in the Netherlands. According to website Vertical Farm are not yet active on large-scale projects in the Netherlands. It mainly stays with ideas† Abroad, 'vertical farming' is already used much more often. A major advantage is that fresh vegetables can be grown in the middle of the city, which means that the logistics lines are very short. In addition, the cultivation is very efficient with fertilizers, water and light. Due to the clinical circumstances, diseases do not play a role. In addition to vegetable crops, fish are also grown in vertical farms. Sometimes in combination with vegetables, where the 'dung' of fish is used to fertilize the plants.

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