Belgium
April 29,2014
Rob van Tetering, CEO of SESVanderHave and Erwin Lammens, General Manager of POM signing the contract for the construction of the research facility
SESVanderHave, the global market leader in sugar beet seed, is investing over 8 million pounds (€10m) in a brand new 20,000 m², high‐tech research centre adjacent to its Headquarters in Tienen, Belgium.
“This facility will increase and extend our R&D capacity. Employing up to fifty people the cutting edge centre will more than double our existing research capacity. Construction will start in late 2014 and will be operational by autumn 2015,“ explains Rob van Tetering, CEO of SESVanderHave.
“This new infrastructure is essential to accommodate future research projects which in turn will drive further improvements in sugar beet performance for growers and industry alike.
“The ‘research centre’ will be equipped with state of the art technology. Thousands of sugar beet plants will be grown under controlled conditions, free from the influence of the weather. Separate enclosed compartments will produce homogeneous environments to facilitate precise control of the growing process to deliver even better, more reliable research and test results.
“Research remains the cornerstone of our business. Growers expect SESVanderhHave sugar beet seed to perform optimally under a range of conditions. By extensively testing new varieties before they are marketed, we are better equipped to anticipate field performance. We are already doing this on a large scale, both in the greenhouse and in our own field trials.
This new facility extends and improves our research capacity. It will also enhance the collaborative research we undertake with renowned universities and institutes worldwide, including within the UK. This ensures our collaborative research remains at the forefront utilising the latest science, innovation and expertise for our products. This cutting edge research centre enables us to expand such research, in turn accelerating delivery of new and improved traits : such as higher yield, improved disease resistance and reduced dependence on inputs.”
“This investment is striking in economically challenging times.” Rob van Tetering explains. As a business we wanted to expand the site in Tienen, because that allowed us to keep the business expertise centralised. Tienen is the headquarters and knowledge hub of the international group and we emphasize this through this investment. We are currently one of the few companies that dares to take such a major innovative investment. We only hope other seed businesses will quickly follow suit because investment pays off.”
“This new investment underlines SESVanderHave’s commitment to, and confidence in, the future of sugar production.”
The Ecological Footprint
The ecological footprint of the centre was a condition of the investment on the Feed Food Health Site which is owned by Provinciale Ontwikkelingsmaatschappij Vlaams‐Brabant ( POM) .
Erwin Lammens, General Manager of POM, explains:
“Feed Food Health was established with the aim of attracting innovative businesses from the food sector to Tienen. The SESVanderHave project fits perfectly with this aim: it is innovative, high‐tech and forms the basis of what Tienen is renowned for: sugar. We could not imagine a better partner at this time.”
“Part of the agreement with SESVanderHave was that the new research centre must be CO²‐neutral. Sustainability is of the utmost importance to us.”
Rob van Tetering explains how SESVanderHave makes such a large centre CO² neutral:
“During design, we paid particular attention to our ecological footprint. Thanks to several innovative features we met both economic and environmental criteria.
“For example, building our own thermal power plant will not only regulate the temperature of the research centre, but any surplus heat can be used elsewhere in the business or exported to nearby businesses.
“We will also recycle rainwater and are working with the latest types of environmentally-friendly lighting and computer-controlled screens to minimise light pollution. As a business we adopt the most stringent rules in the field of (bio) safety and cleanliness, and set our own standards still higher. This ensures our employees benefit from an optimal working environment.”
About SESVanderHave
SESVanderHave is the global market leader in the sugarbeet seed industry. More than one in three sugar beets in the world comes from the typical blue seeds of SESVanderHave. 585 staff members in 23 international sites are led from the head office in Tienen. 283 Belgian staff members are employed in Tienen itself. 32 percent of all SESVanderHave employees works within R&D. SESVanderHave specializes in every aspect of sugar beet seed production: from the development of new resistances and varieties in field trials to the final finished seeds in the factory. Globally SESVanderHave sells 360 varieties each year, the result of a careful and targeted research process. Each variety is developed with a view to the specific needs of each market, worldwide.
SESVanderHave is part of the Florimond Desprez group, a French family company specialized in seed. SESVanderHave is present worldwide wherever sugar beets are cultivated either by a branch
office or a local agent.
About Feed Food Health
The Feed Food Health‐project in Tienen, Belgium is a long‐term and sustainable policy that is shaped as a knowledge and innovation community with room for innovative projects, developments and activities in the broad domain of healthy food for humans and animals. The city works together in a ‘triple helix’ with the POM Flemish Brabant, the University of Leuven and the regional business community.
FFH is visible on the Feed Food Health‐Campus and in the biogenerator Food Port on the Industrial Estate in Tienen.
The FFH Campus was developed as an innovative and knowledge‐oriented work environment for research, development and production. The ambition is to develop the zone into a sustainable and CO2‐neutral industrial estate with efficient use of space, in which businesses are embedded in an extensive facility and park management.
Such an approach makes this an attractive location for businesses. In addition to an attractive work environment, there are also accompanying initiatives such as educational projects and measuring and test centres. Finally the accessibility and quality of urban living and the other facilities are important attractive establishment factors for Tienen.
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