Video

We, Bio Fruit, are a cooperation of six organic fruit growers located in the Dutch provinces of Gelderland, Brabant, Utrecht and Limburg. Together, we cultivate a wide variety of apples including special James Grieve, Delbard, Boskoop, Red Star-Russet and Red Pinova. William also grows organic pears and a few plums. Organic certification is a minimum standard for Biofruit. All of us are committed to further sustainable practices in our own way. This ranges from maintaining heirloom varieties, to engaging in the protection of the bird population in and around our orchards. We are also involved in the local community and welcome visitors on our farms. We started working together in 1998 because we realised that in order to meet the ever demanding needs of the supermarkets and modern consumer we had to professionalize our production. Today, Biofruit is one of the leading suppliers of organic apples and pears in the Benelux.

Harmen Peters ('t Gelders Eiland)
Together with my wife Carla we run a fruit farm covering 12 acres of land on the border of Germany and The Netherlands close to the nature reserve De Gelderse Poort. We grow numerous varieties of organic apples including Elstar, Santana, Topaz, Rajka and Colina. Cultivating so many different varieties is not only good for the bio-diversity, but enables us to make a delicious apple juice right here on the farm. Harmen is very keen to ensure that bird-of-prey find nesting opportunities in or near our orchards and Carla runs a small farm store where sells a variety of organic foods in addition to our own fruit and, of course, our homemade juice, which has been awarded several prizes.

Henri and Diny Albers of Boomgaard Bokhoven
Our orchard is located near the village of Bokhoven in North Brabant on the edge of the Maas river. This part of the world is wonderfully peaceful and quiet.  After my career as a teacher at an agricultural school I was looking for a new challenge so in 1991, together with my wife Diny, we started growing organic appels (Elstar, Jonagold and Santana). Apart from growing delicious organic apples we organize workshops and field trips to meet the growing demand for healthy food and to increase people's awareness how sustainable cultivation contributes to a healthy environment. We also organize educational afternoons in our orchard.

William Pouw
Here in Schalkwijk (near Utrecht) we are running an organic fruit farm covering 13 acres. Besides apples and pears, we also have some plum trees. In 1985 we started growing different varieties of apples including specialties such as Red Russet, Jonathan, and Notaris. Many of these are high stem varieties, which create a unique environment in the orchard – attracting different insects and small animals. I have also noticed a different vegetation in the areas surrounding the taller trees.

Together with my wife Lourdes, we have 12 acres of organic orchards near the historic town of Zaltbommel. We mainly grow apples however, along the edges of our orchards, we also have some organic pear trees. I switched to organic agriculture because it brings me closer to nature. I often walk past the trees and it’s great to see that they are looking better and better. There's really more life in the orchard ever since I switched to organic.