News

This week Rijk Zwaan is present at Fruit Attraction, stand 9D12, presenting new concepts and developments with a special attention for the applicability within the chain.

Although Rijk Zwaan closed its most recent financial year with a slight drop in revenue and profit, largely due to the strength of the euro, the company is continuously expanding its workforce and investing heavily in research and breeding of vegetables.

The research on mildew resistance in lettuce has received a considerable boost. On October 10, the American Foundation of Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) awarded the first research grant to the Crops of the Future Collaborative. This involves an amount of 2.5 million US dollars (2.2 million euros) for the next five years. The award was received at the UC Davis Genome Center in California.

It has been a wonderful year for Gordon Yakel, who is head grower at Delta View Farms in Delta, Canada. The family-owned company is growing 11 acres (3.6 hectares) of the beefsteak tomato Kivu RZ, a relatively new Rijk Zwaan variety. Yakel is very enthusiastic about the results. The yield is better, the tomatoes are bigger and mildew is no longer a problem.

Now available in a range of sizes and colours, the snack tomato has established itself as a healthy alternative for traditional snacks such as potato crisps and nuts. And it has now been joined by a fresh, crunchy mini cucumber that can be eaten whole. One-bite looks similar to a regular snack cucumber, but is even smaller at just six centimetres in length. This low-calorie, bite-sized snack is a perfect fit in Rijk Zwaan’s MyCubies® snack segment.

The snack vegetable trend is here to stay in retail. Consumers all over the world are increasingly opting for tasty and healthy snack-sized tomatoes and cucumbers.

Knox™ and Knox™ Core have won an award during the Fresh Market 2018 in Warsaw, Poland. On 27 September, the prize for Product of the Year 2018 was awarded to Knox. An honorable prize for the innovation that Rijk Zwaan introduced in 2016, during the Fruit Logistica in Berlin.

This year’s Rijk Zwaan Demo Days in Fijnaart started on Monday 17 September. Over the next six weeks, visitors can see and touch a large number of new and existing varieties for themselves. This year, there is extra focus on Rijk Zwaan’s assortment of varieties suitable for organic vegetable production. Visitors can go on a personalised guided tour and receive optimal advice about the possibilities of the organic range.

On the afternoon of Friday 14 September, Rijk Zwaan officially opened its brand-new R&D facility on Eerste Kruisweg in Fijnaart. This extension gives the international vegetable breeding company the necessary space to further expand its research activities.

Snack tomatoes in a variety of colours, the One-bite cucumber and Silky Pink tomatoes complete with packaging ideas – these are just some of the innovations Rijk Zwaan is presenting at Asia Fruit Logistica in Hong Kong from 5-7 September 2018.