TELL US ABOUT YOUR PARTNERSHIP WITH L&M RIJNSBURG. About 16 years ago, we began by selling roughly half of our garden to Joost Leeuwenburg and his associate. We’d barely started a few weeks when we decided to sell them our entire garden. At Ronico, we often say ‘think bigger, act quicker’. That’s what we call the Ronico way. We immediately recognised this same approach in our work with L&M. I believe that’s why we clicked so well, so quickly.
HOW HAS THE PARTNERSHIP DEVELOPED IN RECENT YEARS? The most significant change is that we’ve truly become partners now. We strengthen each other in sales and together achieve the best returns. I’m in contact with Jan Willem almost daily. I reckon we supply about 30 to 40% of all the tulips L&M sells. That speaks volumes.
DO YOU HAVE A UNIQUE MILESTONE YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE WITH US? When we started, we delivered all tulips to Rijnsburg, where they were sold to an exporter. The exporter then packaged them and delivered them to the end customer, usually a retailer. In 2010, we began packaging the tulips on our premises. This eliminated many links in the supply chain. Being able to package ourselves allowed us to deliver directly to the end customer – I consider that a real milestone in our partnership. It’s noteworthy that we were trendsetters at the time; the rest of the market followed later. In the first year, we might have packaged 15 million tulips; today, that number is 300 million. About half of those 300 million tulips come from other growers. They’re delivered to our premises, where we handle the packaging. L&M manages this process, as they know exactly what needs to be delivered and in which colour mix. Connecting supply and demand is truly their strength.
DOES RONICO HAVE SUSTAINABLE AMBITIONS? We certainly do! We’ve started building a new four-hectare greenhouse that will eventually enable us to cultivate on an energy-neutral basis. We’ll achieve this using 4,500 solar panels to generate electricity and a thermal energy storage system. This system cools our cold stores using groundwater that we extract in summer. We then store the heat released in this process back in the ground and use it in winter to heat our greenhouses. This way, the circle is complete. We don’t use much lighting in our cultivation. However, we work with multiple cultivation layers and will use LED lighting between these layers to grow the tulips. It will be the world’s largest tulip greenhouse. At this location, we’ll grow 150 million tulips using as little fossil energy as possible. The uniqueness of this project really lies in its scale. Initially, we conducted extensive research into how certain aspects of energy develop. We’ve gathered knowledge and completed the information. Now is the time for us to apply that and adapt to what the market demands from us. We’re in full construction mode now, with the first tulips scheduled to exit the greenhouse on 1 January. We’re incredibly excited about that.
Robér de Wit - Owner Ronico
