Amsterdam Produce Show full line up announced

The Amsterdam Produce Show and Conference (APS) will be a hotbed for knowledge sharing and transfer for the international produce industry. The full main stage seminar programme line up has now been announced.

The Ministry of Agriculture is keen to see a rise in the consumption of fresh produce in Holland, to ensure that the Dutch population does not follow many other parts of the world into an obesity epidemic

 

The seminar programme at this year’s APS will kick off in style with a panel hosted by Perishable Pundit Jim Prevor. He will be joined by the Dutch minister of agriculture Martijn van Dam, photographed here, Gert Mulder of GroentenFruit Huis, Shawn Harris, CEO of Nature’s Pride, Dick Spezzano, a US consultant formerly vice president of produce and floral for The Vons Companies, and Herman Peppelenbos of Wageningen UR. The focus of the session will be on consumption, and specifically how to raise the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables across Holland, and each of the participants will be asked to give their perspective on what both consumers and the industry could do to improve the health of the nation.

Dutch community combines its knowledge and experience to initiate projects around the world to introduce greater sustainability across the supply chain

 

Elsbeth Roelofs is senior program manager International for Corporate Social Responsibility in the chemical Sector at CSR Netherlands. She is currently leading a three-year (2015-17) program for sustainable development of the chemical industry in Holland and strengthening relations of the chemical sector with developing countries and emerging economies. With 10 frontrunner companies, CSR has formed a coalition to develop projects to achieve the objectives of the program. The companies are CRODA, Stahl, Dishman Netherlands, Tanatex Chemicals, Baril Coatings, Spectro, Nett Energy, C. Kornuyt BV, Ecotender Saneral, NTA Solutions. Four cornerstone projects are already developed, one of which was the founding of a Community of Practice on Transparency in the Value Chain on sustainability issues. Elsbeth will explain the project and its objectives, with particular reference to groundbreaking work already being carried out with the Costa Rican pineapple industry to increase the sustainability of the production, recycling and distribution processes.

An introduction to the successful approach of HAS University of Applied Sciences in connecting theory to practice and delivering the next generation of agri-food professionals

 

It is widely recognised that there is a skills gap developing in Dutch produce, as there is elsewhere in Europe, in part because the raging workforce in this industry has failed to engage fully with the relevant academic institutions in the country. Marnix Wolters, lecturer food and international agribusiness at HAS, will outline the varied ways in which his university already works with the food business and outline the ways and means in which the industry can get more involved in shaping not only its own destiny, but also the lives and careers of the next generation of graduates

The Rotterdam model for enabling and empowering public/private sector partnerships in the development of a resilient and sustainable food cluster.

Sharon Janmaat, Project Manager, Regional Economic Development, Food – has 15 years of experience working for the city of Rotterdam in the economic domain. She is currently dedicated to increasing the business of the Green sector generally, and the food cluster specifically, based on a large private network throughout the whole food chain in the Rotterdam region. Her specific areas of expertise are knowledge development and collective innovation, area development, long chains and multimodal logistics, international marketing, education and employability; all in food. Sharon is currently working on the implementation of several collective innovations in area development for the purpose of globally profiling the Netherlands in the perspective of innovation and transition towards new business models in food in the transition to a next economy.

 

Perfecting the organic production model to provide innovative and sustainable solutions for future consumers

 

Gerjan Snippe set up and runs one of the biggest growing operations of organic vegetables in Holland. But for him, organics is not simply an ideal – he approached the business from a commercial angle first and foremost and with a well structured, coherent strategy has turned his company Bio Brass into one of the most trusted supply chain partners in the sector. Gerjan recently teamed up with the fast-expanding Love Beets brand and has launched BEETZ in Europe. He has also just completed a Nuffield Scholarship – in which he travelled the world to visit different farm models and explore how they are changing the way we farm, in order to feed a global population expected to reach 9.9 billion by 2050. In his presentation, he will touch on all of these areas and give his unique perspective on how an innovative supply chain approach can be key to feed the world.

If you want to know what cellphone crazy Generation Z is thinking, why not go and ask them? Cool Fresh International has done exactly that, as part of a long-term consumer engagement strategy

 

Recognising the importance of the next wave of fresh produce consumers, leading fruit importer Cool Fresh has undertaken a unique research project with Dutch students to analyse how best to communicate with the so-called Generation Z. Mathieu Hirdes, a commercial economics student at Avans University, has headed the project and he will present some of the key points that have come out of focus groups and other research work carried out with hundreds of 14-21 year olds. Cool Fresh’s Nic Jooste will then explain how his business will use the findings to help its customers improve their communication with the next group of economically active shoppers.

A collaborative research project is focusing on post-harvest, non-destructive quality assessments using robots, and modelling quality deterioration in the chain.

 

Wageningen UR Food & Biobased Research explores and develops advanced technologies for objective, automated, fast and non-destructive quality control of fruits, vegetables and other crops together with industrial partners. The key goal of the research project Quality Phenomics is to develop new methods to measure quality and predict quality deterioration of vegetable and fruit products. Rick van de Zedde, a senior researcher/ business developer for Computer Vision at the Wageningen Food & Biobased Research will explain the vision of the project, which is a close collaboration between three different fields of expertise within Wageningen UR and several plant-breeding companies, growers, fresh-produce processors and technology providers.

 

There are a lot of shrugged shoulders and exasperated sighs when food waste gets mentioned. But research and development projects are shining a light on a less wasteful future.

 

The amount of good food that is wasted in Holland adds up to billions of euros per year and the biggest culprit is the final consumer. Roughly half of all of the food wastage each year happens in people's homes, which means of course that the other half is wasted upstream somewhere along the supply chain. Joost Snels, Senior Scientist Supply Chain Management, Wageningen University & Research argues that this is not just a waste of money, but also a waste of the valuable resources that were used producing and transporting the food. Joost says that strategies that can have a real impact on minimising food waste often transcend the links in the chain and are there to be challenged. But research at Wageningen UR shows that reductions of 40-50% are not only possible, they are also well within reach.

 

Wageningen Research is building a mobile post-harvest research lab to raise the knowledge and practice levels in emerging countries.

 

In many developing countries, a lot of time and effort is devoted to the production process, in order to increase yields. However, the post-harvest part of the supply chain through to the consumer is somehow forgotten, often leading to loss of product through a deterioration in quality. Peter Ravensbergen, programme manager, Food Security, at Wageningen UR, will explain why he wants to see more investment in quality-driven agrologistics, and highlight the tools Wageningen Research has developed to support governments and companies in the design and implementation of supply chain management strategies. The approach combines technology, (chain) organisation and knowledge development.

 

Rather than taking a pessimistic view of consumption levels for our products, the industry should be looking for ways to increase access and take advantage of healthy eating awareness levels.

 

Herman Peppelenbos, Programme Manager Customised Food, Wageningen University & Research, specialising in consumer-driven product development, with a strong focus on healthy and sustainable food. As in many countries, there is little correlation in Holland between the awareness that eating fruit and vegetables is healthy and actual consumption of the products this industry produces. Herman believes that with a new approach this problem can be solved. The key challenge, he argues, is to increase the availability of convenient and attractive products at non-traditional eating moments and at out-of-home locations. Recent studies have showed the potential of this approach and Herman encourages the produce industry to see low consumption as a big opportunity, rather than a problem.

 

Click here to read about the full APS Knowledge Centre Seminar Programme, including a stellar line-up of speakers on our pop-up seminar stage on the show floor.

For more information, visit www.amsterdamproduceshow.com or email joinus@amsterdamproduceshow.com