The Netherlands The Food BV

Where does our food come from? How is it produced? Where does it go? Photographer Kadir van Lohuizen shows the important role of the Netherlands in the global food system in the broadcast of VPRO tegenlicht. The Netherlands is the second largest food producer in the world after the United States, and yet most people have trouble pinpointing our little country on the world map. He gives a disconcerting glimpse into the inner circle of our food industry.

The onion is the biggest export product of the Netherlands, around 1.8 billion kilos of onions were harvested in 2021, 84 per cent of which were exported to 130 countries.

Of all the world's vegetables, 70 per cent have a Dutch origin via seed breeding. We are Europe's largest tomato exporter. In turn, we import green beans from Kenya and asparagus from Peru.

Van Lohuizen shows that pigs and chickens are fed partly on rejected syrup waffles, wine gums, cream cakes, doughnuts and other food waste, and that as many as 20,000 pigs a day are slaughtered in the largest pig slaughterhouse in the Netherlands. The heads, legs and intestines go to China, the 'spare ribs' to the US and the hams to Parma and Serrano to return to the Netherlands as Parma and Serrano ham.

An insight into a world that arouses as much wonder as bewilderment.

VPRO Tegenlicht
7 November 2022 22:19 - Season 21 Ep. 6 - The Food BV
Rewatch the broadcast on NPOstart