There is an exceptional story behind every grower. The Flemish grower Piet de Schepper is one of them. A few years ago he became the centre of interest, when he, as the only one in Europe, concentrated on growing a pink tomato. FreshPlaza wants to know what the exact position is with this enthusiastic 'tomato addict' after 5 years.
De Schepper made us very welcome in his small market garden in the Belgian town of Nevele, 10 kms west of Gent. "It may all look old and primitive, but that is the challenge," Piet says. The charismatic Belgian is originally not a horticulturist and he does not have a growers background. "I started as an inspector at the Mechelse Veilingen after obtaining my diploma at the Vlaamse Hogere School. After that I started working for De Ruiter Seeds. As a cultivation advisor at the seed company I of course met many growers. This was also the case later on in my function as key account manager at substratum supplier Grodan. Here I became very interested in the cultivation of tomatoes."
Piet saw the challenge of an own market garden as utopia, when he had the opportunity to take over a small market garden of 1.5 HA from a grower who was retiring, he named his first company after this utopia. "I found it all exciting at that time and called my first company JUTOPIE, a combination of Jules (the name of my son) and the word utopia, the impossible reality."
The Piet's utopia grew within a few years into a successful horticultural company. "I always aimed at innovative products and therefore I started to grow the first European Flandria Speciality Street Sweet Pink, also known as the 'Pink Tomato'. This tomato of the Tomimaru Mucho variety from De Ruiter was very well suited to be grown in an out of date greenhouse. Japan was the original market for this tomato. Therefore, I thought, why not the Benelux."
By getting into the pink tomato adventure de Schepper created an until then non existing niche market. "This of course did not just happen," Piet tells. "I visited all the buyers and finally the supermarket chain Delhaize showed confidence in it. In that way we started with the first 500 m2 and now after 5 years we exclusively grow for Delhaize on an area of 10,000 m2. I am really proud of it!"
It is clear how proud de Schepper is, when he enthusiastically walks through his plants. It is striking that de Schepper's enthusiasm also extends to 'modern horticulture' as much as to the small scale cultivation and niche market. "This is of course something completely different, but I had this ambition. Together with my old colleague of De Ruiter, Marc Temmerman we started to build in Terneuzen in 2009. There we have 10 HA tomatoes on the vine in the meantime, which we also sell through Flandria/De Mechelse Veilingen.
The two companies are totally different. Jutopie in Nevele is directed towards the niche market and with Tomaholic bulk production is important. "I enjoy working with two completely different cultivations," Piet tells. "Here in Nevele I am busy experimenting and I am not involved in achieving an as high as possible number of kilos/m2. I intentionally do not cultivate here all year round. I made a seasonal product out of the pink tomato. In this way a good balance between supply and demand is created. Almost as with asparagus. Prices are not so high for no reason. In Terneuzen it is exactly the other way round. Here we try and produce as much quality product at as low as possible cost price."
Piet shows enthusiastically what else apart from the pink Tomimaru Mucho grows in his playground. "Look, here I am busy with a test pink mini plum tomato. And I still have marmande tomatoes and a new kind of Coeur de Boeuf, is it not beautiful."
I really love this," Piet says, whilst almost running, turns into another pathway. One has to be a little mad, that is healthy!"
For more information:
Tomaholic / Jutopie
Piet de Schepper
1, Smitschorreweg Westdorpe
Postbus 221 4550 AE Sas van Gent
[email protected]
www.tomaholic.eu