First harvest 'lettuce on water'

As a grower of lettuce, how do you manage the unstable Dutch climate? How do you ensure that less manure or fertiliser ends up in surface water and how do you limit the use of pesticides? By: growing lettuce on water. This has the following advantages:

- available all year round
- constant quality (controlled climate, no pests and diseases)
- less CO2 emissions
- no use of plant protection products

Albert Heijn, vegetable supplier Vezet and snail farmer B-Four Agro, harvested the first head of lettuce grown on water on Thursday 31 January.

From 31 January 2019, Albert Heijn will sell six types of lettuce grown on water (Botersla, Red and Green Oak Leaf, Frisee, Lollo Rossa and Batavia). Available all year round and cultivated without crop protection agents and without wasting fertilisers. The taste, nutritional values and shelf life of these lettuce varieties are comparable to those from the ground.

Reduction of footprint

An advantage of growing 'lettuce on water' is that the ecological footprint decreases. Cultivation and transport take place entirely within the Netherlands. Lettuce can be grown all year round in the Netherlands. Only in winter does a small percentage of lettuce come from Spain, for example, which saves a lot of transport costs and emissions. A saving in diesel of one full truck per day.

Process

In about 6-8 weeks seeds are grown to lettuce. The seeds become plants in the culture cell which then go to the greenhouse. There they grow under sunlight and feed on nutrients from the water. In winter, the greenhouse is additionally heated and lit up with gas from, among other things, the greenhouse's own biogas plant and electricity from solar panels. The electricity used for this is generated entirely sustainably, and B-four Agro also generates gas with its own biogas installation in which the residual flows from both B-four Agro and Koninklijke Vezet are processed. After harvesting (approx. 190,000 crops per week), Koninklijke Vezet processes the lettuce into more than 1 million products (mixed lettuce bags and meal salads) per week. Vezet is the European market leader in convenience vegetables. Albert Heijn wants to be able to sell fresh lettuce all year round. This cultivation technique enables Dutch salad lovers to eat fresh lettuce from their own soil all year round.