I bought my first products from Meteor back in the mid-1990s. I can still remember that Meteor Systems was one of the first companies in the world to introduce growing gutters. I was very keen to get away from growing outdoors. After all, growing substrate is much firmer, the roots are no longer in contact with the soil and the airy climate under the growing gutters makes the young crop much more active. In the early stages of the crop, you save on labour as the crop is easier to handle.

It all worked out really well and I have now switched completely to Meteor’s systems and products. Now my partners and I have several greenhouses with tomatoes: 8.3 ha at VW Tuinderijen, 14.5 ha at Hortipower, 10 ha at VW Maxburg, 13.6 ha at Meerfresh, and another 38 ha in America.

One of Meteor’s main strengths is personal contact and the fact that you work on new growing techniques together. For example, we jointly designed some combination brackets to simultaneously carry the CO₂ hose, the heating pipe and the irrigation hose. Another important aspect for me is the fact that everything is nice and compact and neatly finished and that it all goes where it is supposed to go.

I have always been in close contact with Chris, and it’s the same now with Peter Lexmond. Rens Wijnen handled all the water technology. A while ago I was having problems with irregular dripper outputs. This was quickly tackled and together we started to look into how it happened. We tested everything in detail, from the installation to the dripper. That’s the nice thing about our working relationship: lines of communication are short, and their products are long-lasting and solid – something they are completely committed to.

View John Vermeiren’s most recent project here.