“Feeding the world with healthy food”, that’s what we’re striving for day in, day out. We produce top-of-the-line products, without losing our focus on the environment, our surroundings and our people.
Rainbow Growers
Nice to meet you!
Rainbow Growers are specialised in growing, harvesting and packaging bell peppers in a sustainable and socially responsible way.
Growing sustainability
This means that we’re producing in the most sustainable way and are working tirelessly to reduce our ecological footprint.
Within the entire production chain, we’re working to produce the least amount of waste, reduce our gas usage and decrease our CO2 emissions continuously.
We’re proud of the successes we’ve achieved when it comes to sustainability. In the past ten years, we’ve reduced our CO2 emissions with a whopping 77%. We’ve achieved this by reducing our gas usage significantly, even though the acreage of our greenhouses has only increased in the same period. Our most recently built greenhouse, Rainbow Middenmeer, doesn’t use any gas at all! It’s completely heated via geothermic energy.
Besides the important social issue of sustainability, Rainbow Growers also focusses on the welfare of their employees. Safety, good working conditions and sustainable employability are very important within the organization. “The engagement and commitment, but most of all, the enormous amount of responsibility taken by our employees is what made Rainbow Growers what it is today”, director Peter Steentjes explains. “This is what will continue to improve our organization looking into the future.”
Partners
Rainbow Growers Group is an initiative by van Patrick Grootscholten, Daaf Steentjes, Arco Vreugdenhil and Peter Steentjes.
As partners, they are united within the cooperation and in the board of directors.
Every partner has their own specialty. We are aware of this fact and base our decision making on it. It’s our mission to be a leading force when it comes to product quality and innovative enterprise. Our partnership in North Holland spans across three gardens that total 81 hectares and two sorting locations that are used to sort and package all of our products.
Patrick Grootscholten – General Director
An entrepeneur as of 1991, Patrick started realization of Kwekerij de Wieringermeer in 2005. Besides his responsibilities within Kwekerij de Wieringermeer, he’s responsible for the realization of new greenhouses and other projects.
Daaf Steentjes – Cultivation Director
Daaf met Patrick Grootscholten in 1995. After working together for two years, the men started a joint venture: Kwekerij Growin. In the same period, plans were drawn up to start Kwekerij de Wieringermeer.
Arco Vreugdenhil – Financial Director
After studying in business school, Arco started working as an accountant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Six months after Kwekerij de Wieringermeer started operations, Arco joined the partnership in the role of financial director. His responsibilities include finances, energy and legal issues.
Peter Steentjes – Director of Organisation and Operation
Peter has three decades of experience in greenhouse horticulture and has a lot of expertise in the fields of organisation, production and cultivation. After providing the cultivation of young pepper plants for Rainbow Growers for a number of years, Peter joined the partnership in 2018. He’s responsible for the organisation and operations within Kwekerij de Wieringermeer, Kwekerij Andijk and Rainbow Middenmeer.
