Den Berk Délice wants to let consumers enjoy the most flavorful tomatoes that have been sustainably cultivated and packaged year-round. To fulfill this mission, Den Berk Délice has moved to a new packaging plant at business park ‘De Kluis’ in the Belgium town of Hoogstraten. The new building will serve as the central packaging- and distribution center and is their answer to the challenges concerning sustainability and hygiene.
The new building also contains the offices for the commercial department of Den Berk Délice, meeting rooms, and a performance room to receive customers in. Besides the practical aspects, investments have also been made in creating a pleasant working environment for their employees.
Den Berk Délice is the overarching organization that came to be due to the collaboration between 4 Belgian growers of qualitative flavorful tomatoes. In 2014, four growers from the Kempen decided to bundle their expertise and enter the market as a group with the same mission: cultivating the best tasting, high-quality tomatoes 365 days a year. Den Berk Délice is part of Cooperative Hoogstraten.
CO² neutral
Den Berk Délice will be packaging in a CO² neutral way in the new packaging plant from now on. This is an important step in achieving the sustainability ambitions which the company has prioritized for a long time already. The demand for more sustainable production and packaging has been topical for a while now, and now Den Berk Délice has their response to this, not only a sustainable way of cultivating but also sustainable packaging.
The packaging plant uses solar energy, smart lighting, and heating and recovers the rainwater. Even their choice of packaging plays a role in this story. The company uses LCA studies to be aware of the impact on the environment, and they look at the effect of their packaging on food spoiling and how these can be transported in the most optimal way to minimize transportation.
Innovation process
"The new packaging plant also offers possibilities to optimize and digitalize current business processes. This way, we can be more efficient in our work and be more flexible with our clients.”
Hygiëne measures
The packaging plant also serves as a buffer to counter any possible unwanted contaminations of the various cultivation locations. By having the packaging plant away from the greenhouses, and the investments made into our own crate washing system, we take care of spreading the risk, seeing as all of our cultivation locations will be completely separated from each other.
Other expansions
The new packaging plant is made so that it can facilitate the further growth of Den Berck Délice. Because, besides the packaging plant, other expansions have been taking place within Den Berk Délice. “Last year, we took over the tomato company ‘Truyenberg’ in Merksplas, and in Rijkevorsel, we have expanded our cultivation location with 8 hectares of lighted greenhouses.”
For more information:
Den Berk Délice
loes@denberkdelice.be
www.denberk-delice.be