A DUTCH-based greenhouse technology company has bought into the Australian market.
Create a free account to read this article
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
GreenV B.V has bought a minority stake in Australia and New Zealand's largest commercial greenhouse construction company, Apex Greenhouses.
Apex Greenhouses constructs large scale commercial structures for the horticultural industry in Australia and New Zealand, including university research and development projects, botanic gardens and packing sheds.
Its largest project to date has been a 130,000 square metre greenhouse in Victoria.
Apex Greenhouses' Australian chief executive, Folco Faber, said GreenV had taken the minority interest in line with its vision to provide world-leading complete greenhouse projects.
GreenV has international shareholdings in controlled environment agriculture (CEA) businesses specialising in climate control, sustainable energy, heating and electrical engineering, including Voshol heating and electrical, Stolze, Prins Group and HT Verboom in the Netherlands, JV Energy Solutions in Canada and Prins USA.
Mr Faber said it had been a well-considered decision to partner with GreenV, which enabled Apex Greenhouses to leverage GreenV's access to cutting-edge automation and emissions-reducing technologies in a rapidly-advancing CEA industry.
"Projects are becoming larger and more complex," Mr Faber said.
"Our typical client 10 years ago was a family operation and while they are still an important part of our customer base, we see larger corporate interests entering the space with heavy investment worldwide from PE, super funds and listed companies.
"High tech greenhouse projects are capital-intensive, so the monetary injection is needed if we are to feed the planet."
Mr Faber said the CEA industry was experiencing rapid growth around the world, with up to 30 per cent growth per year anticipated in the Asia Pacific region by 2026.
Much of that growth, Mr Faber said, was predicated on adapting to climate change, the need for more certainty in growing conditions and the need to increase volumes to cater for a growing population.
"We can see many examples locally as to why things are naturally moving towards indoor and greenhouse based growing - extreme weather patterns, scarce labour, higher input costs for water/energy/fertiliser are all causing customers to look for more efficient solutions," he said.
"It is well known within the industry that glasshouse-grown produce uses one fifth of the water of field-grown produce and only one tenth of the relative land area per kilogram of produce.
"In the last 12 months instances of $10 lettuces, and with strawberries currently at $7.50 per punnet, high prices are only going to become more prevalent unless more produce can be grown in controlled environments.
Mr Faber said the company was at a crossroads as to whether it continued to compete with much larger, better-resourced groups of companies and make large investments into its own R&D activities, or partner with one of the larger groups and leverage off the knowledge and expertise they already had.
"Partnering with GreenV gives us a seat at the table, and being a minority investment it allows general manager of New Zealand operations, James Harris, and I to retain full control of the day-to-day running of the business," he said.
"Our extremely hard-working staff are now part of something much larger and this will open doors for further personal growth and development of all employees.
GreenV COO Anneke van de Geijn said her company's share in Apex Greenhouses complements its ambitions to grow the mid and high-tech greenhouse industry in Oceania.
"We see significant growth in the industry across the world as our climate changes, and Australia is not immune," she said.
"We have a great understanding of the industry, and we can share that with the Australian and New Zealand markets as we work with Apex Greenhouses."
Sign up here to Good Fruit and Vegetables weekly newsletter for all the latest horticulture news each Thursday...
