Loading...He recently returned home from a visit to sweetcorn trials in northern France, where seed companies exhibit their latest varieties. A week before that he visited Spain to assess the growing conditions there. “I want to keep on top of what’s going on,” he says. “That’s the only way I can make the right decisions.”
At his home office in Kessel, trucks full of freshly harvested corn cobs go past, unloading at the back of the building. At the same time, a lorry is being packed with produce for the supermarket. This entrepreneur built up his company from nothing. His fascination with sweetcorn began when he grew half an acre of maize for a project as a student in the mid-1990s.
“It wasn’t a great success; everything had to be done by hand and there weren’t any good varieties. My conclusion was, never again,” he says, smiling. But he was determined, a characteristic which has stuck with him, and he went to see a buyer for Albert Heijn (the largest supermarket in the Netherlands) with a few cobs under his arm. This move paid dividends as the buyer was looking for a Dutch supplier. And it was the start of a long period of scaling up for the business.
Today, Giel has three quarters of the constantly growing maize market, even with more growers on board. “I don’t have a problem with that; it’s healthy and it forces us to do even better,” he says.
Ambassador for sweetcorn
Sweetcorn has never been a traditional item on the Dutch shopping list. “We’ve only been aware of maize since the 70s,” says Giel. “Since then more varieties have been introduced that can be grown at our latitude. For Americans, maize is an important vegetable; they eat dozens of cobs every year. That’s not a tradition we have.”
Now, the Dutch eat on average a third of a cob a year, but that is changing. “The product is popular. Just look at the advertising leaflets from the supermarket,” he says. “Whenever there’s a barbecue special, the photo features a cob of maize.”
Competition is forcing us to do better.
Giel Hermans
It’s important to Giel to spread awareness of the vegetable. “I’m going into a school this afternoon to tell them about maize – how it grows, what kind of varieties there are and everything that can be done with it. And of course, they’ll be able to try a fresh cob. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep their attention for a while, but it’s something I enjoy doing.”
Regular customers
Late summer and fall are an important time of the year for sweetcorn, says Giel. “We’re in the middle of harvesting our Dutch maize. The quality is fantastic, so we can turn around large volumes.”
Despite the long, wet start to the season, Giel’s growing year ended on a positive note. Sowing started late, and the early maize which Giel sowed under biodegradable plastic, made from maize starch, rotted away due to the heavy rain.
“Twice we had downpours of more than 50mm. There’s nothing you can do about that – fortunately we were able to make up for the damage later in the spring and were able to sow a big enough area,” he says. “Two weeks later than normal, we started harvesting and we can make up for a lot with good in-store campaigns.”
Even sweeter varieties of maize
Harvesting is carried out by a four-row, autonomous machine which removes the cobs from the plants and feeds them into a hopper, which is emptied into a tipper truck.
Giel shows a freshly picked cob; when he peels away the husk it reveals a beautiful, pale-yellow cob, with ripe kernels that taste wonderfully sweet. “This no longer looks like fodder maize; the kernels are smaller and the flavour is a big improvement – and even better and sweeter varieties are coming through. It’s also a matter of harvesting at the right time –just before harvest I spend a lot of time out in the field – tasting, looking, feeling,” he says.
You have approximately five to pick them at the correct ripeness.
Giel Hermans
“You start off planning everything as well as possible, but ultimately it comes down to experience. You have approximately five days to pick them at the correct ripeness. After that, they only keep in cold storage for a few days,” says Giel.
To have a year-round supply of maize, Giel works with contract growers in various countries. The produce is transported in shipping containers from Spain, Morocco and Senegal until August, when the new harvest starts in Limburg, supplying local produce until mid-October. “As close as possible and as far as necessary – that’s our rule,” he says.
Tasty Hereford beef as a sideline
At Giel’s farm, the leftovers from maize processing don’t go to waste. They are fed to the 150-head herd of Hereford beef cattle. Each week, Giel has one or two head of cattle slaughtered – a side business for the farm. The carcasses are processed in-house and sold directly to the consumer. “People no longer have any idea how good beef tastes, and what you can use the various parts of the cow for. Customers who come here say, ‘wow, this is how beef used to taste.”
The building where the maize is prepared for dispatch houses Giel’s butchers and store. Customers come from afar to stock up on beef and sweetcorn. “People who are planning a barbecue often take a few fresh cobs with them.” In the summer, the Hereford herd graze in the Brabant countryside, and in the winter months they are housed in the round loose barn on the farm, with some cows being fed concentrates prior to slaughter.
The husks and other leftovers are fed to his herd of beef cattle …
… which are butchered in-house and sold direct to customers.
Giel’s entrepreneurship has also spread to Germany, where he had some Hereford cattle years ago, although Covid-19 put a stop to this. “I decided to concentrate on direct sales and got rid of the herd in Germany. You can’t be everywhere,” he says.
Optimisation of cultivation and sales
More optimised growing and selling of maize is Giel’s future plan. “We’re cultivating eight hectares of organic maize because that’s where the demand is. But growing is quite a challenge, with weeds making it a laborious and expensive process. There is certainly a healthy demand for organic produce, and we’re trying to offer greater variety,” he explains. “We’re using new cooking and vacuum techniques to work on a product that will last longer.”
Climate change is one of the issues in growing maize, so Giel is critical in his land choices, as good drainage and water availability are a must. In Belgium he recently launched a collaboration with a group of growers, with decent irrigation, to produce for Belgian supermarkets. “These are important developments in order to be able to continue growing even in times of extreme drought.”
Growing organic maize is quite a challenge, with weeds making it a laborious and expensive process.
Giel Hermans
Diseases and infestations scarcely occur. “Maize is a healthy crop, but that’s something we’re monitoring,” he notes. “Southern countries have infestations that we’d rather not have here, like the European corn borer. Every cargo of maize that is shipped in is thoroughly checked, the waste is crushed, and we have to send any suspect batches for incineration – it’s something you have to be strict about.”
So what’s Giel’s favourite way to eat maize? “From the barbecue, but it has to be properly prepared,” he says. “First, I put the cobs and their husks upside down in a bucket of water. Once they’ve soaked up as much water as they can, they go onto the barbecue. That way the cob steams without burning.”