Sun moves Dutch chalk market

"I started alone and have been able to do that for a couple of years. Then I could not go on like that anymore, because there was simply too much work coming to me. In a period of 6 years I had to buy 2 cars and a warehouse full of equipment and last year I also purchased my own chalking machine. And now, now that the sun is shining cheerfully, it is again all hands on deck."

You have to look carefully, but it really is him! Wim van Os cleaning a greenhouse roof

This says Wim van Os, a horticulture man at heart. He grew up on his father’s alstroemeria nursery, where he worked for several years and then started his own nursery. That came to an end in 2012, when he started his own business, chalking and cleaning greenhouses. Spray company W. van Os was established, and that it would grow so fast is something he himself never expected.

"Of course you have to do a good job, but what is often underestimated is maintaining contact. You have to be curious and empathize with the question that a grower might have". He has an example at hand about a customer where he regularly came to clean 10 hectares. The grower had an additional 30 ha of greenhouse, but for this he employed another contractor. This created a conflict, and so Wim was invited to see if he did have a solution for a certain problem. "Together we then looked to see whether I could do it better, and I also tried to make him see to what extent his wishes were reasonable. Then I got the job, not only because I did a better job, but also mainly because there was a more trustful relationship and I came up with a good solution."

Know what you are doing

That may be so, but is everything going well for him? "Of course there are plenty of challenges. Especially the vegetable sector is quite demanding. Modern greenhouses are almost all as a rule equipped with glass with a certain haze that's constantly renewed, the best possible surface structures, with which the distribution of light in the crop is optimized. This again places demands on the cleaning of the greenhouse roof and certainly when it is coated. After all, the cleaning product has to clean but not remove the coating. In addition, the product must be organic, good for the environment and obviously not harmful to the plant."

In floriculture things are a bit easier, according to him. "In that respect, growers of tomatoes and cucumbers are more involved with the technology. At the same time it is also true that growers of flowers are becoming more demanding. In short, it remains a matter of searching and learning."

For more information:

Sproeibedrijf W. van Os

Wim van Os
M: +31 (0)6 18 27 70 73
E: wim@sproeibedrijf-os.nl