Cooperation in the Field: From Valk Exclusief's Sustainable Farm to the Greenest Building, ensuring quality Dairy with FrieslandCampina
Discover how FrieslandCampina and Valk Exclusief's sustainable partnership ensures high-quality dairy products from farm to table, reducing waste and emissions.
When farm manager Arjan Roest opens the doors of the cattle shed on Boerderij de Valk in Leiderdorp, his cows walk out cautiously, one by one. It takes them a moment to get used to both the bright sunlight (as they are more sheltered inside) and the reception committee awaiting them in the pasture: Ben Brander, Account Manager at FrieslandCampina, and Bart van Rijn, Buyer at Valk Exclusief. The two businesses have had a close partnership for years. “This is real farm life, where it all starts”, muses Ben, who is meanwhile trying to attract the attention of one of the cows.
“In today’s society, sustainability has become a key consideration.”
There is a whole process before you get your creamy cappuccino at one of the hotels or your bowl of yoghurt from the breakfast buffet. And that process starts on the farm. Valk Exclusief has been the owner of Boerderij de Valk since the late sixties, and delivers most of its milk to FrieslandCampina. A small part of the milk goes to the Tante Tokkie nature farm in Voorschoten, where it is used to make ice cream. “The rest of the milk is collected by FrieslandCampina every three days”, says Arjan
With due attention to sustainability, of course. Ben adds: “This sustainably sourced milk is delivered indirectly to the hotels via the wholesaler, which delivers the orders in a single Valk Exclusief truck. This is called cross docking. It allows us to control the entire supply chain – grass-to-glass, as we call it at FrieslandCampina. By working together we can maximise sustainability within the chain.”
“In today’s society, sustainability has become a key consideration”, says Bart. “I think all companies attach great importance to sustainability. We certainly do at Valk Exclusief, and so does FrieslandCampina. Having dairy products delivered via the wholesaler means that we can keep better control of our orders and reduce food waste.” Ben adds: “Both Valk Exclusief and FrieslandCampina are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. One of the ways that FrieslandCampina does this is by rewarding dairy farmers for greenhouse gas reductions on their farms.” To ensure this sustainability, farmers like Arjan are given support.
Arjan makes great efforts on his dairy farm to provide sustainable products: “The entire shed is built according to the Dutch Sustainable Livestock Farming Standard certification system. This means that the cows’ cubicles must be a certain size and each cow must have its own lying area and eating area. In addition, I have low-emission flooring, there has to be a certain number of cubic metres of fresh air in the shed and I have LED lighting and solar panels.”
To keep track of their progress on sustainability initiatives, his wife Tineke fills in the Kringloopwijzer every year – an online tool that gives farmers insight into the environmental and climate performance of their farms. The results are linked to FrieslandCampina’s sustainability programme: Foqus planet – Sustainable development. Since Arjan also practises full-pasture grazing, his milk bears the Weidemelk logo of Stichting Weidegang. This means that the animals are out in the pasture for at least 120 days a year, 6 hours a day.
Ben: “This is monitored by an independent party. Which makes sense, as you can’t have a situation where you set up a system and say that you’re applying it, but no monitoring takes place. All it takes is for one action group to demonstrate that this is not the case and you’re toast. And rightly so.” In order to support the farmers, Valk Exclusief makes extra investments in FrieslandCampina’s Foqus planet sustainability programme. “We recently entered into an agreement in this regard”, Bart explains. “Based on the products that we purchase, Valk Exclusief invests extra in FrieslandCampina’s Foqus planet sustainability programme. This is then used to reward farmers who invest in sustainability on their farms.”
Products supplied by FrieslandCampina to Valk Exclusief include milk, buttermilk, cream, whipped cream and yoghurt. The milk is also processed into special products for chefs and bakers, under FrieslandCampina’s Debic brand. Erik van Meerkerk, chef at Hotel Schiedam, likes to use Debic. “They’re great products to work with.” After spending the morning in Leiderdorp, Bart and Ben are welcomed in Erik’s kitchen. “You’re now in one of the greenest buildings in the Netherlands”, he says at his endlessly long counter. From the restaurant, you can look in through the window. “Everything’s gas-free.
We have around 3,000 square metres of solar panels and there’s a ground-coupled heat exchanger underground, which is used to heat the shower water and the dishwashers, for example.” Very sustainable, in other words. But it has been no mean feat getting to this point. “Food waste in the kitchen is still an issue”, Erik says. “For example, how much should we put out on the buffet in order minimise waste, but still satisfy the guests? That’s an ongoing struggle.
“We select partners that are committed to sustainability.”
Fortunately, we need to throw away less and less food.” This is partly due to Debic products. Erik: “They are basic products to which you add something to make it your own. Take this bottle of Cream Plus Mascarpone, for example. I use it to make Strawberries Romanoff. I put the Cream Plus Mascarpone into a whipped cream spray canister, add some strawberries and alcohol to the bowl and the result is very nice. It saves you messing around with different products, plus nowadays we get it in larger sizes, so we have to throw away less packaging. That cuts down on waste too.”
Ben and Bart are both proud of the partnership between FrieslandCampina and Valk Exclusief. Bart is happy with the value for money offered by his supplier. “Many chefs think Debic is a great brand – I never get any complaints about that. Quality at a reasonable price is very important to us, and the same goes for FrieslandCampina. We’re a good match in that respect.” Ben: “It’s also great that we’re both fully committed to sustainability. We see eye to eye on that.
Both FrieslandCampina and Valk Exclusief benefit from achieving carbon reduction. It’s brilliant that we’re both working on sustainability and that the partnership is going well.” Bart: “We select partners that are committed to sustainability. Like FrieslandCampina. It is nice that together we can contribute to a greener world.”
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