Voorst, The Netherlands- The official opening of the new building at Enza Zaden/Vitalis' Voorst site took place on Monday 25 March. The property offers all the modern amenities, fits into a historic site, and was designed with attention for sustainability. The new building offers room for the growing organization and for continued development, in line with future needs and requirements.
This year marks thirty years since Jan Velema founded the Vitalis business in Voorst. Throughout the years, Vitalis has developed into a world-class player. It has become a global brand in a market that has seen the demand for organic seed rise sharply over the past decade. Partly due to European measures, this growth is expected to continue in the coming years. Hundreds of colleagues work on this brand every day, from the Netherlands to Spain and from Germany to North America. The Voorst site, which is the birthplace of Vitalis, boasts a new building with facilities that meet today's – and future – requirements. This is where employees can work, come together and study, create, and share innovative solutions under ideal conditions.
“We are extremely proud of how modern times and the organic foundation have come together in the new building,” Jolanda Veenhof-Tas explains. "In our view, this is a recalibration of the Voorst site, where there is room, literally and figuratively, to use thirty years of expertise in organic cultivation in order to screen our assortment, for low input fertilizers, for example."
Measuring fifty by sixteen meters and boasting two floors, the building was appropriately dubbed Bio-Tope. The word 'biotope' means an area characterized by features that are different from the environment and therefore inhabited by a typical ecological community.
"We felt that this applies to us," Voorst Station Manager Jolanda Veenhof-Tas explains the choice of name. "We, too, are such a typical ecological community, with a commitment to organic cultivation and product as our common factor.
The company opted for sustainable material and a sustainable construction technique for the design and construction. What's more, the building has been realized as energy neutral as possible. The new building's roof is covered with 72 solar panels, for example. Combined with the solar panels already present at the Voorst site, the company is the proud owner of 250 panels in total and thus generates thirty percent of the required energy in-house. The building also has two heat pumps, is fitted with LED lighting, and there are other smart solutions. For example, the heat extracted from the climate-controlled chambers and seed vault to cool them is used as input for the building's heating system. In addition, there are drums to store heat and cold, the floor covering is made of circular material, and bamboo, a more sustainable option, was chosen for the interior and exterior finishes.
