With the completion of the warehouse extension at the Eldingen location, as well as the expansion and takeover of the Wietzendorf location, EUROPLANT Pflanzenzucht GmbH has significantly expanded the storage and process capacity for seed potatoes for the 2020/21 season.
“We can now store approximately 20,000 tons of seed potatoes at the Eldingen, Oetzen and Wietzendorf locations. Another same quantity is delivered to the warehouses by propagation companies in the current sorting process,” says Hans-Adolf Ferchau, responsible for this area.
In addition to regionally established propagation companies without sufficient storage space of their own, this also creates good opportunities, especially for newcomers from the south of Niedersachsen, to use seed potatoes to expand the crops already grown.
Early vegetation offers several advantages
“With these products from Lower Saxony, especially for early export shipments, we reach markets that would otherwise not be served. Due to the former vegetation, we are able to carry out the first shipments overseas from the end of September” Christian Krahn, the export leader responsible for this area, says about these additional opportunities.
Due to the extensive sorting and process capacity, up to 600 tons of seed potatoes can be prepared for loading daily at the three loading stations in the Heide region, depending on the packaging unit. Added to this is the loading capacity in the warehouses of the BNA companies in MVP and Kehdingen, RAISA in the Stade region, as well as the many small loading companies spread across Germany.
In preparation for the main loading period, the warehouses also work in several shifts, so that the quantities can be made available on time.
Space and time
bridging EUROPLANT thus fulfills the many customer wishes with regard to regional origin, different sorting sizes, various packaging units from 5 kg, 10 kg, 12.5 kg, 25 kg up to the BigBag and individual loads with high reliability. A great many additional services are offered in the context of space and time bridging. Particularly in the increasingly shorter loading period in the spring, in which many companies increasingly want to purchase the seed potatoes immediately around the time of planting, EUROPLANT delivers reliably in the period that has been coordinated and desired by the customer.
The many possibilities of the technical cooling, which is now available in almost all parts of the warehouse, help enormously in this.
Regional, national and international customers
“We supply seed potatoes in the desired packaging from the end of September to May, as our regional, national and international customers expect from us,” says director Jörg Eggers about the background of these construction and logistics expansions.
