"With Inspire, we have a very nice, unique variety on our hands. This strawberry variety falls under the Inspiring Berries brand: this stands for premium quality fruit with the best growing characteristics and customer specifications. The Von blackberry and the Lagorai raspberry also fall under this," says product marketer Kantinka Bijl of The Greenery.
She explains that it's not only strawberry growers from The Greenery that are hooking up or expanding, but there is also recruitment from external growers, who are hooking up to the Inspire platform. "The Greenery has exclusivity on the Inspire variety and believes in its potential and is therefore fully committed to brand awareness to achieve acreage growth. And this is starting to bear fruit with our growers, customers and consumers, both literally and figuratively."
Inspire: added value for both growers and customers
"This Inspire strawberry variety offers added value to both growers and retailers and other customers," confirms Klaas de Jager (Agronomist, The Greenery). "The fruit has a consistent quality and the strawberries such a good flavour that it even won prizes at the Floriade. Combined with a higher standard in shelf life, Inspire is an exclusive strawberry. For growers, this variety offers stability because it produces strawberries without harvesting peaks. This allows the grower to spread his staff better and the supply towards customers is constant."
"Furthermore, the harvest performance of Inspire is very high. This has a positive impact on labour utilisation on grower farms and organising the harvest. Finally, the Inspire strawberry is less disease-sensitive than other strawberry varieties, allowing you to grow greener. The combination of these winning features makes the Inspire variety very interesting for greenhouse growers. Even when, as a grower, you want to switch from ornamental cultivation to fruit cultivation."
Area doubling
"We are going to double the acreage next year. A larger part of which will be among growers from The Greenery. A number of growers raise their own plants and one of The Greenery's growers also has a sub-licence to propagate plants, which is a unique position. There are also non-Greenery growers who purely hook up to the Inspire platform: so-called platform members. They supply Inspire strawberries to The Greenery or stay with their own existing sales channel. They do become part of the new Inspire platform," Klaas says. "The form depends on the win-win situation we can achieve together."
Growers about Inspire
Diepstraten is also an independent grower and platform member. "We want to grow Inspire because this variety does not peak like many of the traditional June bearers, but produces nicely evenly. Inspire has a high picking performance and consistently produces good quality strawberries. That is why we have joined the platform and are now growing up our plants in 2024 for a continued cultivation on 6 ha that will start August 2025."
Westberry actually chooses to join as a member of The Greenery by 2025: "Westberry chooses to grow the Inspire variety by 2025: this strawberry has proven itself in the market in recent years with good quality and taste. We are doing this together with The Greenery because they have the customers and we can work with more growers and improve each other," says Robert Zwinkels (co-owner Westberry).
Agronomist Klaas de Jager inspects The Greenery's strawberries in grower Guus Cox's greenhouse.
Cox Aardbeien has been a member of The Greenery for many years and, with the purchase of a new 5-hectare site, is betting on expanding its production area to over 11 hectares, which is made possible by Inspire's favourable labour characteristics. "Without this variety, we wouldn't dare to take such a step, but with Inspire. we do. We're also allowed to propagate Inspire ourselves and propagate our own plants, so we are in control of the entire chain."
Linking supply and demand
Klaas: "From The Greenery, we are the link to connect growers, acreage and production to customers and the market. That is our mission." "That's where our real strength lies," Katinka adds. "When you connect not only growers, but also customers, you can grow acreage linked to customer demand. Retailers and other customers can register themselves and have growers/suppliers hooked up to the Inspire platform. But, as a grower, you can also bring in customers. Together, we can then devise and execute a growth plan; that gives more certainty and suits our (international) ambitions towards the future."
'Inspire-strawberry showcase'?
Especially for retailers or soft fruit specialists interested in buying or growing Inspire, The Greenery is organising the 'Inspire-strawberry showcase' during the week of 30 September to 4 October. Interested parties should contact their salesperson at The Greenery or Klaas de Jager.
For more information:
Klaas de Jager
The Greenery
Mob: 06 53 84 24 02
[email protected]
www.thegreenery.com